Go to Egypt, Argentina, Ireland! Take a free notepad, have a pen, grab a pamphlet and write your e-mail address on this card! Like most activities I attended first year, the study abroad fair was overwhelming, with people yelling for me to look at their table and peruse their photo albums of smiling students. Luckily, passing through the publicity gauntlet that is the Lawn had prepared me for this mayhem. And I was on a mission: find a study abroad program in South or Central America, preferably Chile or Peru, that wouldn’t break the bank.
After spending eight weeks in Ecuador during high school, I fell in love with South America and knew I wanted to return there during college. What I hadn’t thought about before were questions like: What kind of credit did I want to earn, what was my budget, what kind of living situation did I want? Could I spend a semester abroad and still graduate on time? I hadn’t even declared a major yet and was loving my time on Grounds, but I knew I wanted to spend a semester abroad. I also knew I would do whatever was necessary to make it work — I just needed to find a program that was the right fit. After visiting some of the more posh tables of companies like IES Abroad and the Institute for Study Abroad, I saw a poster for UVA in Peru and several students eager to talk about the summer or semester they spent with the program. Although they didn’t have any shiny gadgets to offer, the students all spoke highly of their experience and the booklet looked interesting. I was intrigued but wanted to keep my options open.
Always the diligent researcher, I sat on the Lawn and started reading the pile of information I had just picked up. When I opened the UVA in Peru booklet and pored over the list of possible courses, I wanted to take them all. Pulling up the program’s Web site on my computer, I realized I had to go on this trip. After looking at the information for hours and boring my hall mates to death talking about it at dinner, I called my parents that night and told them, “I’m not sure when and I’m not sure how, but I want to go to Peru!” I sent them the link to the program Web site and promised to bring home piles of information.
Fast forward to third year. After hundreds of e-mails and lots of planning, I’m preparing to leave for Peru in March. The U.Va. program allows me to take classes in either English or Spanish, which is perfect for my questionable abilities. I used to be conversationally fluent, but haven’t taken a class en Español since suffering through grammar exercises in SPAN 311 first year. Everyone says it will come back to me, and I have confidence that it will, but I’m sure that will mean a lot of pointing and awkward mistakes at first.
The semester at Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya doesn’t begin until March so I have plenty of time to think about my trip and luckily also plenty of time to work and re-learn Spanish. While it feels strange to know that my fellow Wahoos will be on Spring Break before I even leave to begin my semester, I am keeping myself busy with my job and getting ready for my trip. Paging through the Lonely Planet guidebook I bought myself for Christmas and taking in bird’s-eye views of Peru via Google Earth fill me with excitement and anticipation. (Nerdy, I know.) While waiting to experience it all first-hand, watching YouTube videos and reading travel blogs will have to do for now.
Rachel’s column runs biweekly Tuesdays. She can be reached at r.gottlieb@cavalierdaily.com.
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