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Shaping Lives
Collegian Travel & Adventure Magazine
Fall/Winter 2004 |
Who knew that a 15-hour plane flight from Las Vegas to China would turn my world upside down? I now eat foreign food in a foreign land where I speak a foreign language and I am officially the foreigner. The closest Wal-Mart is a couple thousand (only metric measurements in China) kilometers away. Starbucks is close, but instead of mochas and lattes, interesting infusions of red and green beans are served. A western toilet is a rare find and calling home now requires pushing double digits. The funny thing about it is that I would not have it any other way! You see, I am on the adventure of a lifetime creating memories for a lifetime and I love it. I am a baby in a world of new things, hungry to explore and learn about my new environment. People as eager to learn about my home as I am about theirs surround me. Each day is filled with new words to learn, new places to see, new people to meet, new food to taste, etc. I am definitely not in Kansas anymore. This is what is great about living and studying abroad. In China, I have quickly met some of the greatest people I think I will ever meet. Spanning the globe from China to Denmark to across the States to Russia to Korea to Japan to Australia and so on, the USAC core of students will surely be friends for a lifetime. Through our highs and lows, we collectively use great quantities of patience and humor to deal with the cultural differences that we face daily. In these challenges, we have become stronger as a group and as individuals overall. In addition, the faculty that teach us and nurture us have been phenomenal. They have insured our physical safety and well being, provided a helping hand when needed, and supported us through our studies and lives. All in all, my hope is that when I return home, I return a better person full of new experiences with a broader perspective on life. I hope to be more patient, more friendly, and better at speaking Chinese. Nonetheless, jumping on that first plane from the USA to China was the best move I have ever made.
- Jason Chan, USAC Chengdu, China |
After working for three years in the non-profit world I decided to take a break and try something new. During my struggle to find my new path, the new path found me. My good friend and fellow student of the Costa Rica program, Chris Seek, contacted me with a concept for a new company. Chris's concept stemmed from his travel experience, knowledge of marketing and multimedia technology, and love for the eco-tourism and sustainable tourism efforts in Central and South America. Combining our experience and knowledge allowed us to form a company that we feel will make an impact on the travel industry and support the local efforts in Costa Rica. Solimar Marketing's mission is to first identify hotels and lodges in Costa Rica that are managing their business within a sustainable tourism mission. We then work with the owners to identify new ways to make them more sustainable and eco-friendly and use multimedia and traditional marketing tools to help promote them along with a network of like-minded partners to the US Market. So as I embark on this new path in my life I find myself back in a familiar world. I am once again living in Costa Rica and visiting and working with some of the projects that I studied in class while I was here 5 years ago. I have heard that a study abroad experience impacts your life. I can attest to that. The world I live in today, the career that I have, and the person I am, have all been impacted by the 4 months I lived in Costa Rica and attended the USAC program.
- Ben Isenberg, USAC Heredia, Costa Rica |
To me, even five years after studying abroad with USAC, my experiences in San Sebastian, Spain during the spring of my sophomore year in college are the most interesting ones I've ever had. Those six months, though a brief period in my life, define a major part of who I am. Since then I've had numerous defining moments; I graduated from college, graduated from law school, passed my state's bar exam, and got my first real job. However, in my opinion, the thing that is most interesting about me is my time studying abroad. My semester abroad, essentially, put me on the path to where I am today. I found myself in a foreign country and out of my comfort zone. This put me in a position where I was forced to think about what I was made of and who I was in this world. By the time I returned I found I had an international perspective on life that I never could have developed had I not left the United States. I was learning a new language and living in a new culture. Taking classes with international students and living with a Spanish family. I was trying new foods (like tortilla, paella, and cow-tongue) and traveling throughout Europe on the weekends. I changed my major from Civil-Engineering to Spanish and fell in love with learning and speaking the Spanish language. I returned to the U.S. with a surety about my life that I had not enjoyed when I left for Spain. College led to law school and my resume when applying was pretty ordinary in black and white. But it was my study abroad experience and bilingual skills that gave it the color of diversity that let it stand out in a pile of other applicants. So now I've come full circle. The path I started on in Spain has led back to the source. Now I work for USAC on a professional level and get to help send students on the journey that I enjoyed so much.
- Joe Goodnight, USAC San Sebastian |
| Established in 1982, the University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC) is a consortium of 30 U.S. universities, and provides 31 quality study abroad programs in 21 countries including intensive language and full curriculum programs. Month, summer, semester and yearlong programs include field trips, university credit, small classes, numerous housing arrangements, scholarships, and internships. USAC currently sends more than 2,000 students abroad each year with students coming from over 500 universities worldwide. Visit our website at usac.unr.edu to see the latest news and information about our programs. Request a catalog, apply online, and read more student essays. |
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