Latvia
Brianna Allen, a senior art major at USM, was abroad last spring. For the price of USM tuition, she studied in Riga, Latvia. She says the insight she gained academically, culturally and personally was “exponential.”
Her first impression: “it’s cold. It’s dark. No one smiles. No one seems friendly — It could be the least welcoming feeling I have every felt.”
Her final thoughts: “I have never met more genuine people as I have here. Latvians are very reserved — and this was hard to understand for me.”
It took her three months before she could say, ‘I have friends here!’ but when she finally could, she says she has never felt more confident in the thought. Latvians, she says, are “altruistic and sincere, but you really have to prove yourself.”
Brianna’s advice to students going abroad? “Always know where you are coming from, where you are and where you are going. Literally.”
Italy
Mary Jones, a USM photography student, spent last year in Italy, at an international design school in the heart of Florence. She says that she knew from high school that she wanted to study abroad.
“My dream finally came true on September 6 of 2006 when I landed in the beautiful city of Florence, Italy,” she says. She spent her entire junior year studying art, traveling from country to country and meeting all kinds of people.
“My taste buds were almost always pleasantly surprised and my camera got the workout of a lifetime,” she says.
“The experience changed me forever; it challenged my boundaries as an individual, giving me the courage to face the world. Those nine months I will never forget. I encourage anyone who has the same opportunity to take it without hesitation. You will not be disappointed.”
Chile
Rob Ellis, a third year political science student, spent last semester in the southern hemisphere.
While Mainers were heading into winter, his home in Santiago, Chile was quickly heading into summer.
Encouraged by a growing need for Spanish speakers in America, he wanted to travel to a Spanish-speaking country. Chile seemed ideal.
“I was enrolled in an intensive, Monday through Friday Spanish course, and I took a class in Latin American culture,” he says. It was his first Spanish class ever, and it was certainly an immersion experience. Knowing so little at first was quite a barrier, he says, “but then you realize that you can get dropped in the middle of somewhere and survive.”
He learned to navigate the city and the culture with the help of his host family, a 30-something mother and her 6-year-old daughter, and on field trips with his Latin American culture class.
He spent more than an hour each morning commuting to school on metro and bus lines for more than an hour through Santiago.
Ellis found several things surprising about Chile. “People think everything they’ve seen in American film is true about Americans. My host mother swore that it was strange how Americans drank at funerals. She’d seen in a movie. Also, I mean, it’s not like Portland, Maine. There have been many military coups, windows are barred and there are fences everywhere.”
But Chileans, he says, are welcoming and friendly, despite the fences and bars.
“Also, everything is so lax, I could be 45 minutes late for class, and it would be no big deal,” he says, and things were scheduled late in to the night. “Soccer games, which were huge, did not get underway until 10:45 at night, and school would start for young children at 1:00 in the afternoon.”
For more information, visit USM’s Spring Study Abroad Fair on Tuesday April 15th from 4-7 p.m. at the Brooks Dining Center, USM Gorham.