One Year Abroad

[sometimesabroad]

It’s almost time!

3 more days until I leave for Mexico! My program doesn’t start until the 30th but I’m leaving one week early so I can spend time with my family in Mexico and so that I have times to set up. 

But before I leave, I wanted to document all my thoughts and feelings about my trip. Perhaps once my program is over I can reflect on them and see if I was right/wrong about some stuff.

What do I think Mexico City will be like? Thankfully, I’ve been fortunate enough to go multiple times since birth. Since I was a baby until I was 9, I went multiple times. For 11 years, I didn’t go; until this past summer. So I have a general idea of what to expect. A lot of foreigners 

What activities do you want to try / sites do I want to see? I really want to learn how to cook authentic Mexican food so I'm going to see if I can take a course or maybe ask one of my aunts to teach me. I also really want to go to El Grito (Mexico’s Independence Day) as well as to celebrate Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). 

What am I most looking forward to? My Spanish improving and seeing my family more frequently. And hopefully I make friends and have adventures throughout the semester. 

[sometimesabroad]

Why I Chose to Study Abroad in Mexico

I’ll be honest, studying abroad in Mexico City wasn’t my first choice. My family is from there so I figured I can just visit anytime and it’s not like I’ve never been. I was primarily looking into studying abroad in Japan (I would finally be able to use my Japanese after all those years of studying it!) as well as Rome or New Zealand. So what changed? 

Well, thanks to one of the clubs I’m part of, I learned more about dual immersion teaching and it’s something I’m very interested in. However, despite speaking it all my life my Spanish isn’t perfect. So obviously, to teach it to children, I would have to perfect it. And then I decided to add Latin American Studies as my minor (so now I’m up to 2 majors and 2 minors). So the countries that seemed perfect for me were those in Latin America. I would be able to study Spanish and visit the historical sites I was learning about as well as experience different Latin American cultures. However, my first choice was a joint program for Argentina and Chile which focused on Human Rights. But the program turned out to be very competitive (my school only accepted 3 people!) and I didn’t get accepted. 

But the study abroad advisors in my school are amazing and helped me figure out my options. They allowed me to apply late for the Mexico - UNAM program (which was my second choice)! But this meant I only had one week to get 2 letters of rec, make a lot of copies of documents, and write my statement of purpose in Spanish! Since I just transferred to my university the previous quarter, I was freaking out because I didn’t know any faculty that well! But my fave professor and TA from the previous quarter helped me out big time! They agreed to write the letters of rec within the week. However, they had them ready for me 2 days later! It especially helped that I was taking that professor for two classes that quarter as well. He told me that “repeat customers get VIP service” lol. So I had my letters of rec and other documents, now what? Well, I applied and within the week I was accepted into my school’s program. I then had to wait a bit more for UNAM (the university I’m going to) to accept me. 

Now I’m less than 30 days from leaving and I can’t be more excited! It was a long process (still is! I have so many things I still have to do) but it’s def worth it -- and I haven’t even left yet! 

I know some people judge when I say I’m going to study abroad in Mexico, even some of my fellow Mexican-Americans, but in the end, it’s for me and what will me happy.

[stdyabroadproblems]

Finally completing all of the necessary paperwork for my study abroad application

[sarahpaige]

Study Abroad Moment #6

When I’m told that I have to wait till June until I can take care of my visa, housing, signing up for courses and basically everything important

[sometimesabroad]

Introduction

Hey guys!

So it’s after midterms rn and I only have 45 days until I leave to study abroad! I am going to study abroad for both fall semester (mexico city) and spring semester (santiago, chile) and I thought keeping a blog would be perfect to document the process, my thoughts and experiences, and other random stuff, like restaurant recommendations ;) 

Feel free to ask any questions or suggest places I should check out if you’re from there :)