One of things that sparked my interest was the experience of moving from Ecuador to California. ...
One of things that sparked my interest was the experience of moving from Ecuador to California.
Another thing was that my high school hosted several international exchange students every year.
There were some teachers and students that believed these exchange students were an asset to the
high school and integrated them through active class room participation and social events. There
were some families and teachers that also hosted these exchange students, including my own
family. We hosted two students. It was during high school that I became interested in pursuing a
career in study abroad. As I mentioned before, my first official travel abroad experience through
a program was during the summer after graduating from high school. Soon after starting my
university career, I started taking foreign language courses. I started with French in high
school and continued taking it during my first couple of years in college. Then, I also became
interested in taking another Romance language, Italian. It eventually led me to study in Italy
for one year.
During the time that I have been working for EAP, I have had the opportunity to travel to some of
our partner universities and cities abroad. Some countries that I have visited are Argentina,
Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay. All of the traveling and my work with international
students motivated me to learn more and be more involved with people who have had experiences
abroad. For example, I started to get involved in an international student club. In addition, my
past experiences abroad motivated me to try to learn yet another romance language. This time I’m
trying to learn Portuguese.