OSU Abroad « knowledge without borders

Lauren Eyrich is a third-year student in the Oregon State University Honors College majoring in Animal Sciences with an option in Pre-Veterinary Medicine, and is a member of the Pre-Veterinary Scholars Program. During Summer and Fall of 2013, Lauren studied abroad at Lincoln University. At this University located outside of Christchurch, New Zealand, Lauren participated in an animal sciences focused program through OSU’s College of Agricultural Science. She also detailed her term-long experience abroad in her own personal travel blog.

If you had asked me while I was abroad what I was taking away from my experiences in New Zealand, I would have talked about rugby matches, cooking venison, driving on the opposite side of the road, and jumping off of a bridge. What I’ve come to realize after the fact is that, these were all just experiences. Don’t get me wrong, the experiences were amazing and nothing I would have traded for the world. I got to see so much in such a short amount of time, but the true impact of my time in New Zealand wasn’t realized until I was packing up my room and heading back to the U.S. after five and a half months.

I have always been a planner. I’m a pre-vet student, and between a full course load, 10 hours of work per week, and a job shadowing, I have a very strict schedule. But, if New Zealand and the Kiwis taught me anything about life, it’s that you shouldn’t have everything planned out. If you have everything planned all the time, you have no room for adventure.

This became incredibly clear while I was touring the South Island on my mid-semester break with three friends. We took off on the few highways that the country possesses and didn’t really have much of a plan. We “freedom camped” a few nights on the side of the road, ate mostly-cooked spaghetti off a burner that didn’t always work, and drove thousands of kilometers with no true destination. We knew we had two weeks to cover as much ground as possible and that we had to have our rental van back by the specified date. For the girl who always has to have everything planned, there was something very freeing about not knowing what the following day held.

You are able to enjoy life so much more when you’re not concerned about having to meet deadlines. Being able to pull over on the side of the road and take in the sunset, without the pressure of needing to get to a campsite or hostel made the experience that much more enjoyable. I mean, I was able to go bungee jumping! Never in my wildest dreams would I have planned something like that into my schedule. And I can say now as a bungee survivor, I am really glad that I didn’t count that one out from the get go.

Overall, the Kiwis taught me to plan a little less and improvise a little more. My future career as a veterinarian will be filled with schedule changes and missed deadlines, and that’s okay. I have begun to learn how to roll with the punches so to speak and not get overwhelmed when things don’t completely abide by my schedule. It’s okay to improvise. The greatest moments in life are the ones when you are able to sit back and relax, without being distracted by the bustling world. Although I have gotten sucked back into my busy schedule, I try to find some time every day where I can simply let life happen and slow down to enjoy the people and things around me. My time in a small town outside of Christchurch, New Zealand is continuing to impact my life in ways that I didn’t expect!

Breanna Balleby is a junior in the Oregon State University Honors College majoring in English and International Studies and minoring in French. During Summer 2013, Breanna studied at the Centre international d’étude de la langue française (CIDEF) at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, France through the summer intensive french language program offered by AHA International. She also detailed her term-long experience abroad in her own summer travel blog.

Weekend excursions, soirées with the moniteurs (teaching assistants), dinners with my famille d’accueil (host family), and of course mes cours (my courses) made my first experience abroad a flourishing success. All aspects of my French language proficiency (speaking, listening, writing, and reading comprehension) skyrocketed while studying abroad. Combine that with my continued appreciation and understanding of the surrounding culture française and it’s easy to see how my experience abroad was so fulfilling. To top it all off, I found it was the unexpected and spontaneous moments out and about in Angers that really enhanced my time abroad. It was at these seemingly unimportant times that I found myself fully experiencing la vie française (the French life) and practically blending in with the rest of the Angevins (people from Angers).

One of my favorite moments may appear rather mundane from an outside perspective, but to me it represented a realization of true immersion. I was waiting for the bus, as I often did while in Angers. By the way, I must take a side tangent to compliment Angers, along with the rest of France on its exceptional public transportation system. When I first arrived in Angers, my host family told me the bus would always be within six minutes of the time it was supposed to be there, up to three minutes before and up to three minutes later than the proposed time. I have to say, as a frequent rider of ligne 3 between my host home in Avrillé (a suburb of Angers) and centre-ville (downtown), I was very pleased to find that my host family’s tip was correct! It was quite an efficient transportation system and definitely made me recognize some ways we could improve our own public transit back home. Needless to say, I was a fan of irigo (the Angers transit system).

So anyway, I was waiting for the bus, right? It was a beautiful summer day, but there was an occasional downpour or two even in the warmest months of the year. Let’s just say, I came to France not knowing the word for “storm,” but left knowing very well that it is called an horage. This late-July day, I was almost to the bus stop when I felt a few raindrops on my arms that were soon accompanied by the sound of distant thunder. Within seconds, I had made it to the bus stop and the rain was pouring. It was amazing how quickly it was coming down, but what was more moving was the instant sense of community ignited by this deluge. People who had been walking along le Boulevard Foch quickly popped into the bus stop in order to escape the rain. In this moment, language was unnecessary to express the general shock and partial humor of the situation. A group of us were huddled together in that bus stop away from the beating rain and rushing wind, half smiling and half in awe of the scene before us. This moment only lasted a few minutes, but it is much more powerful to me than just getting stuck outside during an unexpected horage. At that time, everyone who piled into the bus stop was similar, and we transcended the normal roles of Angevin, foreigner, student, passerby, etc. As simple as it was from an outside perspective, it was one of the first times where my identity as “a student from the United States temporarily living in France” disappeared momentarily, and we all became “some people who happened to be outside during a passing horage.”

This experience marked the beginning of a grand appreciation for living in the moment. From that point on, I continued to search the beauty of simplistic or routine qualities of life in Angers. On Saturday, I went to the local marché en plein air (Farmer’s Market). I tried sushi for the first time ever with my French friend, Anne-Claire. I visited le Musée des Beaux-Arts (the local art museum) not once, but three times, after finding out that admission was free for students. During my one week off from classes, I even figured out how to get a library card at the municipal library! Lastly, I would always take up the opportunity to walk around Angers whether I was on my way home from the university, wandering downtown, or exploring the beautiful riverside park behind my host family’s house. Overall, it was these experiences that helped me fully integrate into the Angevin culture. By focusing on these serendipitous and passing moments, I transitioned from being an outsider and a tourist to becoming a participatory and understanding student of la vie angevine.

It is this quality of life, more than anything that I’ve taken away with me from studying abroad in Angers. So now, no matter where I am in the world, I have continued (and plan to continue!) to fully participate in and reflect on those seemingly unimportant moments. These preciously simple instances of day-to-day life should be appreciated for the potential of adventure, spontaneity, and/or even just a possibility of a shared human experience that lies within.

Robert Plascencia is a junior in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, studying Electrical and Computer Engineering and minoring in Business and Entrepreneurship. In order to gain cross-cultural experience, and heighten his German language skills, Robert studied abroad in Berlin, Germany through AHA at the Freie Universität Berlin during Summer 2013.

I’ve wanted to travel the world ever since high school, but I never really got the chance. I also wanted to become an engineer, but I didn’t know if those two things could be merged.

During my sophomore year of college, I realized that engineers sometimes travel as a part of their jobs if they already have experience living abroad: employers look for individuals that are familiar with cultural assimilation. Even though my mind was set on wanting to go learn about the world, I still had to face the problem of funding. While I had a little bit of money saved up, I applied for some scholarships to cover the rest of my costs. Right when it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to go, I was awarded the Gilman Scholarship at the last possible moment — which was more dramatic than I’d have liked. I would get the chance to learn how cultures vary and what it was like to be a part of the minority.

I traveled to Berlin for a month and lived with a homestay family. Having never traveled so far before, I needed to find a balance between my desire to acquire an intercultural perspective and my first-time exposure to living in another country. I found that a short-term summer program was a good compromise: I learned without overwhelming myself. I had a great host family that had been to the United States several times and had hosted American students before, but was still eager to learn about life in the States and was more than happy to share about Germany. Interestingly, they were hosting an exchange student from Italy at the same time, so I learned about Italy and the larger European Union as well.

In addition to learning through my interactions with my host family, I took German courses at the Freie Universität Berlin (The Free University of Berlin, lovingly called FUBiS) and was in a classroom with mostly other American students who had never been to Germany before. Being around so many other Americans let me see how other people handle the change, the culture shock, and how they grow to become self-reliant. Seeing this, combined with my own personal growth, I learned that different people can be the same as us.

While I didn’t study engineering in Germany and instead focused on German language, this time abroad still applies to my greater career aspirations. I was afraid to study engineering because I felt my German wasn’t nearly good enough to appreciate the concepts I would’ve been learning. I became more fluent with German. Of course, I still have much to learn – I have a clear American accent, my vocabulary is poor, I speak slowly, and I need to think carefully about how to say every sentence. Nonetheless, through the language, I learned about the German way of life, and gained that experience employers look for when considering whom to send abroad: they know I won’t succumb to culture shock, that I have dealt with the challenges of being away before, and that I am open to change. My next step in this journey is to apply this experience to an internship or to an actual career.

Even though most people set out to experience a different culture or to get away from home, careful planning allows travel to help with career aspirations as well. With new challenges always come new opportunities, and engineering is a field always looking for those driven to learn.

Kimberley Preston is a junior in the Oregon State University Honors College studying both Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences and International Studies. During Fall 2013, Kim studied Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management at the School for International Training (SIT) in Madagascar.

My whole life I have been a naturally fast walker. As soon as I decide on a target destination, I charge forward, taking long strides, and moving with purpose. After spending a semester in Madagascar, however, my technique has changed. As a student in a biodiversity and natural resource management program, I spent the majority of my four months abroad trekking through rainforests, spiny thickets, deserts, mangroves and the infamous tsingy (stone forest). All the while I learned about nature and immersed myself in the diverse environments and cultures of Madagascar. But, in a country rooted in the theme of mora mora (slowly, slowly), where success in life is measured by zebu count, family and land, where people live and breathe the environment around them, no one goes out hiking for fun. For most Malagasy people, hiking is not an activity of pleasure; it is a necessity of daily work.

In every new region we explored, the theme of mora mora persisted. Nearly three months into our semester, we reached Le Parc National d’Andringitra. This place was unlike any others we had seen yet. We hiked to base camp with all of our gear on our backs. The elevation gain revealed itself in the hours of steep climbing and in the cooling air around us.

The very next day, we woke with the sunlight hitting the cathedral mountains that formed a ring around our little plateau. Packing plenty of water and layers to shield against the cold, we followed our local guide to the trail head. Before leaving, Fidel, our guide, explained rule number one: he would set the pace. Composed of experienced hikers, the group was antsy to charge the mountain to reach our final destination, Peak Bobby, but we respected the rule and obediently kept pace with Fidel throughout the hike.

I soon realized, though, that this was not the usual, aggressive Western pace I grew up with. This was a hiking experience following the rhythm of a Malagasy man. For the first time I truly felt the heartbeat of this amazing place and I realized the value of living by the pace of mora mora. It gave me time to taste the cool, moist air; to hear my shoes scuff the dirt; to exchange ideas with my peers and live in the moment.

Today, back in the U.S. it is easy to fall into pace with those rushing around me—everyone charging forward with a purpose. Now though, I slow down every so often and appreciate the value of experiencing not only different places but different paces as well.

Claire Ostertag-Hill, a senior double majoring in Biology and Psychology and minoring in Chemistry at Oregon State University, interned at the Center for Social Medicine in India through IE3 Global Internships during Fall 2013 and explains the impact her experience overseas has had on her day-to-day life.

After completing my internship at Pravara Medical Trust, I was fortunate to be able to travel northern India for a little over a week before visiting Thailand and then making a short stopover in South Korea. These post-internship travels allowed me to transition more slowly back into life in America. I first got the chance to explore the grand cultural diversity and visit some of the big sights in India, followed by embarking on new cultural adventures in Thailand and South Korea. This gave me an opportunity to first reflect on India’s culture through contrasting it with other Asian cultures and appreciate the cultural ideals that are maintained across Asia. The excitement of my post-internship travels initially prevented me from realizing the lasting impression India had made on me during my eleven weeks there.

Now that I am settling back into my life in the U.S., the lasting impacts of my time in India are becoming much more evident. Of course it is nice to be back with my family and friends, to have conveniences of American life, and the freedom to safely make my own decisions. However, there are many things I miss about India – my friends, the culture, the bright colors, the lively streets and busy village. I miss the unpredictability of life in India, and the knowledge that each time I stepped out my room, I would be embarking on a new adventure with new observations to be made and new things to be learned. I love India for all the amazing new experiences it has enabled me to have over the past eleven weeks, from the novel medical and health exposures, to becoming an active participant in the rich Indian culture and visiting the absolutely breathtaking architecture, and to the exciting activities I engaged in such as para-sailing, riding on the back of a motorcycle, and riding an elephant and a camel. It is difficult, nearly impossible, to fully describe everything that I have experienced in India and the lasting effects it has had on me as a person and potentially on my future.

Follow the link below to Claire’s original entry on the IE3 Field Notes Blog: http://ie3global.ous.edu/blog/comments/1363

Oregon State senior Rachele Gallinat is a Human Development and Family Sciences major in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences and is currently overseas! Rachele is fulfilling her degree internship requirement by interning with the Eric Liddell Centre in Scotland through IE3 Global Internships.

I have begun my internship! The Eric Liddell Centre is located in an enchanting building with a beautiful winding staircase and stained glass windows filling the halls. My desk with my own computer, centre email address, and personal phone line (I feel so important) are located in a cozy little copy machine room that opens into the Ca(I)re Programme office. Despite how secluded that sounds, coworkers are frequently entering the copy room and I couldn’t find a more social office to have! The other great part? We never stop drinking tea! It’s quite lovely to always have a warm drink in hand.

This week I began researching carer support and setting up carer courses for the Ca(I)re Programme. Carers include those who are in an unpaid caring role for a loved one, spouse, friend, or neighbor. Specifically, the Ca(I)re Programme aims to provide free courses for caregivers to have a break from caring, learn something new, receive much needed support, and even get more exercise. Courses include anything and everything from birdwatching walks to yoga, painting, relaxation, and even computer courses.

My research began with calling all the carers who had participated in the courses last autumn. Speaking to the carers allowed me to discover how these courses have helped them in the long run, how the course helped give the carer a break, and other factors like the improvement of overall health. Speaking with Scottish people with various experiences has been quite fascinating and typically ends with discussing where I come from.

Follow the link below to Rachele’s original entry on the IE3 Field Notes Blog: http://ie3global.ous.edu/blog/comments/1365/

Alejandra Marquez Loza recently graduated from Oregon State University with an Honors B.S. in Bioresource Research and a minor in Chemistry. During her final term (Fall 2013) as an OSU student, Alejandra received a scholarship from IE3 Global Internships and interned with Child Family Health International (CFHI) in South Africa.

Fear is temporary, but regret is forever. That was the slogan for the Bloukrans bungee jumping advertisements that really got me to just go for it. Prior to arriving there I really did not think I would actually jump off the highest bungee in the world! Once there however, I just thought back to all my initial fears of what being in South Africa might be like, and how none of my worries had proven to be true. Just as I had conquered those initial worries and worked so hard to overcome the obstacles it took to be interning in Africa, I felt I could not pass up the opportunity to conquer another fear. I decided to jump. The first 2 seconds felt like the most terrifying moments of my life but afterwards came a strange calm followed by an extreme adrenaline rush. I was on the top of the world. I felt that if I had conquered that initial fear, I could really do anything I set my mind to.

During the ten weeks I spent in South Africa on rotations at hospitals, clinics and outside of work I found that the moments where I learned the most were when I placed myself outside my comfort zone and took leaps of faith with uncertainties. Cape Town and Durban were not what I imagined before arriving there but far exceeded any expectations I had. I learned to plan for things to go as unplanned and embrace the moments of discomfort. There were often little fears I had to overcome when I felt hesitant about approaching a doctor, answering questions during ward rounds, or starting up conversations with patients in my limited Zulu or Afrikaans. Despite my initial hesitations, I always felt it was well worth it when, to my surprise, it was such simple acts like those that taught me something valuable or that sparked long-lasting relationships.

Follow the link below to Alejandra’s original entry on the IE3 Field Notes Blog: http://ie3global.ous.edu/blog/comments/1364/

OSU Abroad

knowledge without borders

Livin’ Life Kiwi Style

Joie de vivre: Discovering the “Joy of Life” in Angers

Overseas Experience Boosts Employability

A Feeling of Place and Pace

Leaving India with the World in my Baggage

Up, Up, and Away!

Facing Fears

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