Translator

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

A Second Exchange

It seems crazy to think that I left for my exchange to Brazil almost two and a half years ago. It seems even crazier to think of all the things that I learned and experienced during my time. The craziest thing of all is that my love for Brazil has not dwindled, despite being stateside for a year and a half now. 

It is difficult to put into words what an exchange does for someone and how it effects their life. One of my friends recently interviewed me for the Samford Crimson (my university's newspaper) and after an hour long interview she repeatedly let me know how challenging it was to limit my experience in Brazil to a word count and create a concise article that did the time justice. I think she did a great job! 


After three semesters of college, a summer chemistry, some extra work on the side and my parent's blessing, I have decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go on a Second Exchange. Yes, you read that right. It is just about every exchange student's dream to be able to re-live their exchange experience but many never have the opportunity to do so. While I may not be "re-living" the experience, I will be spending a semester in Argentina studying at Universidad Blas Pascal (UBP). It will be a different experience in many ways. I believe it will be easier is some ways, knowing that I have a little language background and having had experienced culture adaptation once before. In other ways it has the potential to be much more difficult. The stakes are higher and the language matters more. I will be taking classes in Spanish and I will not have the safety net of Rotary as I did previously.