study abroad « OSU Abroad

Carly Clark is a junior at Oregon State. She is majoring in History and minoring in Spanish. Carly studied abroad in Chillan, Chile, fall term 2012 through OSU: Universidad del Bio Bio.

Three months, four countries, and countless unforgettable memories later; I accomplished a childhood dream to study abroad. During fall term 2012, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel abroad and study Spanish in the South American country of Chile. I traveled to Chile with 17 other students from Oregon State in search of life changing experiences and a unique opportunity to study Spanish in a native Spanish speaking country. What none of us expected is that we would create deep roots and a second home in Chile.

During my time in Chillan, Chile, I had the unique experience compared to the rest of the group. I arrived two weeks later due to my sister’s wedding. The rest of our group had two weeks to get use to the new surroundings, the language barrier, and ultimately settle into our new lives in Chile. At the beginning it was difficult, overwhelming and unlike anything I have ever had to overcome, but in the end it did not hold me back thanks to the help of my host family, friends, and our program coordinator. Through everything, I have created lifelong friendships and our group has become my second family. Our classes were very different than I expected. Our professors were very easy going, patient, and encouraged us to travel and to learn more about the Chilean lifestyle and culture.

The Chillan, Chile study abroad program offers students an unique opportunity to fulfill their Bachelor of Arts language requirements in three months, while learning about an entirely new culture in a foreign country. My initial intention to study abroad was to finish my second year of Spanish in three months, but what I did not expect to happen was to find a passion in learning Spanish and to continue my education working towards a Spanish minor. Oregon State offers a wide variety of study abroad programs with endless possibilities. I considered studying abroad in Spain or Costa Rica, but something stood out about the Chile program. When talking to the program coordinator, Lucia Robelo, and past program students, I could see how enthusiastic they were about the program – learning a foreign language and most importantly how their lives had changed. Chile had become their second home. In the end, I felt Chile was the best program for me, and I was right!

During my time in South America, I traveled to Argentina, Uruguay, and topped it all off with a trip to Machu Picchu in Peru. Buenos Aires, Argentina, the birth place of the Tango and some of the best vino (wine) y carne (steak) in the world. Six other students from the program and I ventured to Buenos Aires in early November. We spent a week in the country’s capital as well as a day in Uruguay. We drank the wine, ate the steak, danced the Tango, and experienced the Argentinean lifestyle. Uruguay was an unplanned day trip, but ended up to be one of the most memorable adventures I experienced in my three months abroad. Rounding out my three month stay in South America, two others and I traveled to Peru in early December to visit one of the 7 wonders of the world, Machu Picchu. After living out of a backpack for 7 days and hiking through the Peruvian rain forest in a straight down pour, we finally arrived at the city of Aguascalientes below the site of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was one of the most remarkable and breathtaking experiences of my life that I will never forget. Throughout all my trips, nothing was more important and exciting than meeting natives from the different countries I visited. I truly enjoyed learning about their experiences and culture.

On my last day in Chile, I was very excited to board the plane and begin the long 22 hour trip home to the U.S. After the plane left the runway, I knew I would not be saying “goodbye”, but “see you soon” to my Chilean family, friends, and my second home in Chile. In the future I hope to return to Chile to visit my Chilean family and friends, but until then we all have remained in close contact. My study abroad experience was like nothing I have ever experienced or expected. It was BETTER! I was emerged into an unknown culture, community, country, language, and overall way of life. I can proudly say I have grown as a person and have the utmost respect for other cultures in the world. I would recommend studying abroad to any student interested. It is not impossible!

If someone were to ask me when I was beginning my first year of Spanish if I planned to study abroad or if I would continue studying Spanish after I fulfilled my foreign language requirements. I would say it was very unlikely. However, the unexpected happened; I studied abroad in South America and I am currently six credits away from completing my Spanish minor. After my experiences abroad, my life and goals have changed for the better. I graduate next spring with a degree in History and a minor in Spanish. After all the life changing adventures I have been fortunate to experience within the last year, I have created one life goal for myself: to maintain my Spanish language skills.

Natasha Badaa is a senior at Oregon State University. She is studying Business Management and French. During Fall 2012, Natasha studied abroad at Grenoble Ecole de Management in France through API.

During my study abroad experience in Grenoble, France, I had one goal: do something every day that scares me. Although I was a thousand miles away from what I called home, I dared myself to go outside my comfort zone in a foreign country and a foreign language. One of my favorite memories related to achieving my goal happened during a weekend trip to Marseilles, France with my friends. Marseilles is famous for the Calanques, which are a beautiful set of cliffs that extend off the coast. Tourists travel from near and far to hike the cliffs down to the Mediterranean Sea and swim in the private lagoons. My friends and I traveled by bus to the trailhead and hiked for over an hour to this unbelievable swimming spot surrounded by cliffs. There was something special about this place we found in the Calanques in the south of France. It was a place to escape from reality and immerse ourselves in the scenery of the rocks and sea. Climb one of the cliffs and perch up there for a while. Admire the humbling view. You’ll quickly see what I mean. The view extended for miles and miles above the clear, aquamarine water.

Tourists lined the rocks, jumping off one by one into the sea. Terrified of the prospect, I was determined to try it anyways. My friends and I climbed a huge cliff that was nearly 15 meters tall. I was shaking with the fear of slipping and falling. Frozen in this fear, I perched on the rock and refused to jump. It was not until my friend climbed back up and convinced me that I could do this. She reminded me about how great it would feel to accomplish something I was afraid of. Together we jumped off that cliff, together into the deep blue water.

My time abroad meant conquering fears and accomplishing goals that I never dreamed were possible. In five months, I traveled to new countries, became fluent in a language, hiked mountains in the Alps and jumped off cliffs in the Mediterranean Sea. I made friends with locals, went wine tasting in the south of France, and learned more about myself than expected. Studying abroad has changed my life in more ways than I could have predicted. I learned independence and confidence. I learned culture, American and otherwise. My biggest piece of advice to anyone who wants to study abroad is this: do not hesitate about anything. Be brave and jump off cliffs.

Erik Dove is a junior at Oregon State University, pursuing a degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry and Spanish. He is an International Ambassadors for the office of International Degree and Education Abroad. Erik studied abroad in Salamanca, Spain, through API.

I have many fond memories of the summer I spent studying in Spain: relaxing on the beaches of San Sebastian; enjoying tapas in La Plaza Mayor in Salamanca; hiking in the Pyrenees Mountains in the north of the country; my time in Spain was entirely unforgettable. However, I came back to the states with more than pictures, souvenirs, and memories; my experiences abroad contributed to an overall change in my academic and personal goals and gave me the opportunity to experience a culture much different than my own.

I chose to study abroad because I wanted to increase my Spanish language proficiency. Living with a host family not only gave me this opportunity, but also exposed me to various aspects of Spanish culture. I experienced the value placed on socializing through observing my host family’s nightly outings to enjoy food and drinks with their friends. I was exposed to differences like the size of meals (small breakfast, large lunch, late-night medium sized dinner) and enjoyed the food-induced lethargy of the afternoon siesta. These experiences accustomed me to the cultural differences between the United States and Spain, and I came to appreciate the distinct aspects of Spanish life.

Throughout my experiences in Spain, I couldn’t help but think about how culture-specific aspects of life function in cross-cultural communication. Since my goal is to become a physician, I was intrigued as to how aspects of different cultures come into play in doctor-patient interactions. My experiences abroad inspired me to incorporate elements of culture, language and communication to my existing goal of becoming a physician. When I returned to Oregon State, I applied to the International Degree program to add an international dimension to my studies of Biology and pre-medicine.

As a whole, studying abroad was an invaluable and life-changing experience that enhanced my academic goals and inspired me to pursue international education as a secondary academic focus. I developed an appreciation for differences in cultures and an interest in how these differences affect interactions between people of different backgrounds. My study abroad experience in Spain has become a foundation for my academic and career goals, and has given me the drive to develop cultural knowledge and language proficiency to internationalize my education.

Jordan Machtelinckx is an International Ambassador for the office of International Degree and Education Abroad. He is a student at Oregon State University, majoring in Civil Engineering. Jordan studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, through CIEE. Below, he provides a reflection of what he learned from his experience abroad.

Every day while I was studying at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and living with my host family, I was observing and learning. A foreign environment made my senses acute to absorb as much information as possible. Learning is inevitable in that context, but understanding the dynamics I was observing took time.

Throughout my life and over the course of my travels, I’ve learned that at least half of the lessons I learn come about after my return home. After cultural immersion in South Africa, I didn’t realize how much I had learned until I got back into a familiar environment that, for the most part, remained constant during my absence. My home culture in Oregon acted as a control to help me understand what I had learned in my absence and measure how I had changed.

The most obvious way I saw that South Africa had changed me was in the form of patience. Not just temporal patience, but particularly situational and interpersonal patience. After having my outlook and personality stretched and reshaped during my immersion in so many cultures over the course of six months, I noticed that I couldn’t really find anything in my daily life back in Oregon that bothered me anymore; personalities, attitudes and actions that I didn’t understand before and that I used to find irritating now seemed to float by me without effect and usually resulted in only a smile on my face whose source I couldn’t identify.

Stunned at first that just about nothing managed to annoy me, it stimulated me to figure out why. Where did this patience come from? What had happened in the last six months to make me reach some sort of peace that I could see only indirectly? Even as I write this, months after my return and having pondered the thought constantly, I can turn up only a basic, indefinite answer – one that provokes additional questions more than it provides an answer to the original one. That answer is simply that I have become closer with myself, better friends with myself, even.

Throwing myself into an experience in which I had to provide all of my own strength and motivation has resulted in better self-understanding and acceptance of who I am. That’s logical enough. And I could have guessed that would happen before I left. But I didn’t expect it to result in a fundamental change in my daily outlook upon my return to Oregon. I still have a lot of understanding to reach with my experience in Cape Town, and a lot more travel in the future to stimulate more of this personal philosophy. As usual, the disparity between the plethora of questions and the handful of poorly articulated answers will serve as motivation to continue to explore physically, metaphysically and philosophically. But for now, I am quite content with this newly found peace, this traveler’s Zen.

Monica Larson is an International Ambassador in the office of International Degree and Education Abroad at Oregon State University. She is also a senior pursuing a degree in Zoology and a minor in French. Monica shares how her fascination with the French culture as a little girl took her half way across the world to study abroad at the Université Catholique de l’Ouestin in Angers, France, through AHA, and Contemporary French Studies Program in Paris, France, through CIEE.

Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by the French language. When I was younger, I thought the language had an intriguing sound. Little did I know how far that intrigue would take me – turns out it was half way across the world. I took French in high school, and my family participated in a program where we housed Charles Molia, who was from France, for one month during the summer. The month we had with him could not have been better. Since then, our family has met his family, and we are all very close and regularly talk to each other. This experience only enhanced my fascination with the French.

After this, I tried to learn as much as possible about French culture and society, but I knew that I would never truly get a grasp on it unless I went to France. For that reason, I studied abroad in Paris and Angers during the summer after my sophomore year. In Paris, I took a French film course and explored the city as much as possible. I was there for Bastille Day (French Independence Day), so I was able to compare it to our Independence Day. I find it extremely interesting how cultures are so different from each other, but we are still closely linked to one another. I think it is a necessity to learn about the different cultures around the world, because there are so many different perspectives and we can learn so much from one another to make the world better.

In Angers, I took a language intensive program and learned French along with people from all around the world including Greece, Mexico, China, Ireland, Ukraine, Japan, Columbia, India, and Pakistan just to name a few. I not only learned about the French culture, but also values and beliefs from other cultures from international classmates. I saw different issues in a whole new light. It gave me a chance to discern what I value and believe. This is a great example of things you learn while studying abroad that were not the original goal, but great surprises.

From studying abroad in France I gained countless memories and friends that I will have for my entire life. Also, I learned about myself and what I want to do in life. I realized that I want to work in France one day at a zoo or aquarium.

I would definitely recommend studying abroad to anyone who is thinking about it because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that you will never regret and always remember. In fact, I am planning on going abroad again. I am in the process of applying to the OUS program in Lyon, France, and will be there for a year. I am very excited to return to France to see what new adventures lay ahead.

Larry Becker is an Associate Professor in Geography and Director of the Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Program at Oregon State University. He spent a sabbatical year, August 2010 – July 2011, at the University of Poitiers in west-central France as a visiting scholar. Below he shares a brief glimpse into his life abroad.

From our university apartment for visiting researchers, my wife (Oregon State Geography instructor Laurie Yokoyama Becker) and our 12-year old daughter (Malia) looked over rooftops, across the shallow Clain River to the Roman era city center of Poitiers.

Sunrises and sunsets reflected on the faces of the 900-year-old Notre Dame La Grande. This view resembled what the attacking Protestants would have seen in the late 16^th century depicted in a wall-sized painting from the 1620s in the city museum. A strong sense of place is ever-present!

Malia walked daily to school in the center—passing near the site of an enormous Roman amphitheater and a street that 800 years earlier was gated at night separating the Jewish residents from the surrounding Christian population.

The streets of today, though, caught her eye, with mouth-watering éclairs in windows and narrow passageways to share with cars. I walked away from the city center in the opposite direction past a prison where French resistance fighters died during the WWII German occupation, and Walmart-sized mega-stores to the 1960s-era campus. My colleagues in the Migration Studies Center where my office was located welcomed me and invited me to lunch for the best cafeteria food—choices of fresh fish, boeuf bourguignon, and salads.

For research, I traveled to Mali. I interviewed villagers outside the capital Bamako to understand changes in their livelihoods. The biggest change I found in a village where I lived 25 years ago, is that the sorghum and millet farmers are selling their ancestral land to urban speculators and those seeking a retirement home.

I flew to the north on the edge of the Sahara to visit Timbuktu with a German aid agency that invited me to visit a rice farming project. Laurie remained in Poitiers teaching Oregon State E-campus courses from our apartment. Returning to France, my family and I traveled by train to Toulouse, the Italian coast, Rome, Naples, and the Carnival in Venice.

Quelle année! We met Oregon State students on a study abroad in Poitiers. This is an experience for Oregon State students and faculty alike.

Alexandra Gulick currently works as a International Ambassador for the International Degree and Education Abroad office. Prior to this position, she studied abroad in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean with CIEE: Tropical Marine Ecology and Conservation program in Fall ’10. She not only obtained personal growth, but found a passion for marine ornithology. Her next step is to be accepted into the Fisheries and Wildlife graduate program at Oregon State University.

The decision to go abroad while in college was one I made when I was very young…I want to say when I was in kindergarten. All I knew about the concept was I would get to live in another country. While I doubt I fully understood my decision, the thought of being somewhere completely different fascinated me.

Growing up on a ranch in a very small town in Eastern Oregon, thinking about the world outside of my little bubble was beyond intriguing. Whether it was the goal to go to college, study abroad, or be a marine biologist, I was more than determined to accomplish it all. Little did I know, spending a term in a different country would not only determine my career aspirations and teach me independence, but it would be the experience of a lifetime.

I studied abroad in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean during the fall of my junior year (2010). For four months I lived at the CIEE Research Station as a student of the Tropical Marine Ecology and Conservation program with fifteen US students. A typical day in Bonaire would usually consist of class in the morning (e.g. coral biology, tropical marine conservation) and spending the afternoon underwater learning the many wonders of the local coral reefs.

I chose this program because it gave me the opportunity to learn in a hands-on manner. Intense field, research, conservation, and community service experience barely graze the surface of the skills I gained from this program. Ultimately, the research project I did in Bonaire helped me define my career path. After conducting research on a local seabird, I had an instant interest in marine ornithology. Since my Bonaire experience, I have completed the marine biology program at the Hatfield

Marine Science Center, been a field technician for the Seabird Oceanography Lab at Hatfield, and been a research assistant for PRBO Conservation Science on the Farallone Islands. My next goal is to be accepted into the Fisheries and Wildlife graduate program at Oregon State and study the impacts of climate change on seabird ecology.

While Bonaire gave me the tools I needed to gain further experience in my field and discover my career aspirations, it also had a profound effect on how I see myself and the world around me. I am now a much more independent, aware, and open-minded individual. I have always loved meeting new people, but for me now, meeting people has become such a necessity in my life. I am fascinated by different cultures and the rich backgrounds of people around the world. I now know what it is like to truly be immersed and part of another culture; it’s thrilling, intriguing, and an incredible feeling! Thanks to Bonaire, I understand the importance and benefits of spending time abroad. As an Education Abroad Ambassador for the International Degree and Education Abroad office, I absolutely love encouraging and supporting others to have an adventure of their own.

OSU Abroad

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Category Archives: study abroad

Seven Wonders of the World

Conquering the Calanques

A Reflection on Study Abroad Experience in Salamanca, Spain

CIEE: Cape Town, Africa

Study Abroad in France

France: University of Poitiers

CIEE: Tropical Marine Ecology and Conservation Program

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