One Year Abroad

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). 

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!