Sipping coffee and denying reality, my mind’s internal iMAX screen hosts a screening of my study abroad experience. In the same nature that one’s life flashes before them, with one day left to spend Barcelona, perhaps this sentimental replay is a micro-version of seeing the light. This highlight reel assembled at the culmination of my study abroad semester features countless moments from weekend trips; the decadent meals, famous art, impressive architecture, fleeting romances, etc. But the majority of screen time is set in the CEA classrooms, as it became evident that the vast majority of my learning occurred in actual study.
Yes, I know that this seems obvious. One would assume that the point of studying abroad is to study. The study component of study abroad is the justification we sell our parents, friends, selves on. “Ah, the academic rigor of the study abroad program in sunny, beautiful Barcelona is absolutely necessary for my degree,” we declare, “the winter program offered in central Russia will simply not suffice.” But even in these arguments said aloud, our internal voice insists the cultural immersion and opportunities to travel are the real value of studying abroad. My older friends, study abroad alumni, parents, professors at Michigan even, rolled their eyes at the courses I had selected to take abroad- nearly guffawing at the fact I would be transitioning from 19.5 to a mere 12. I left for Spain in January, justifying my class schedule in a Business, Innovation & Design Program at CEA and UVic as the excuse to get me to Europe, where outside the classroom, real learning would occur.
Evidently this was a widely held belief, as there was much moaning and groaning at the CEA attendance policy that failed its students after the eighth missed class. In hindsight, I am actually grateful for this attendance policy, as it kept me physically in the classroom. More importantly, it anchored me into the curriculum, CEA programming, and Barcelona.
Affectionately, some called the CEA Program, “CEA Summer Camp,” highlighting the fact you could pass the courses with the minimum energy expensed if you really try to game the system. (Note: this actually required more energy that just completing the work asked of you.) As study abroad students, we celebrated the supposed easiness of the CEA Program, as though its structure was not an active choice made by the professors and CEA staff.
In hindsight, I realize that the supposed laxness of the program was not an accident, but rather a delightful mix of Spanish culture and CEA’s commitment to teaching more than a classroom can provide. The CEA staff realize that not every student will engage fully in the academic coursework, so they have set up a program that requires students to build critical thinking skills regardless. While we believe that we are cheating the system and winning abroad, maxing out our absences to travel through Europe and go out every night, really we are learning to evaluate the risk / reward of our decisions. Every time we ask ourselves if it is worth it to miss one more class, have one more drink, etc., we are making choices that become part of our moral character and decision-making abilities.
Many of our assignments were simple, crafted to accommodate the academic aptitudes of 500 students from around the world, but this turned out to be a gift in itself. For the easiest assignments, I quickly finished them for stress-free time to explore Europe. For others, encouraged by the flexibility and support of my professors, I crafted engaging learning experiences, producing essays and projects with an engagement level far-beyond what I regularly give at my home university.
The best expression of this is in my photojournalism class, where I spent four months crafting my “Los Abiertos” project that that has become the storyline for my abroad semester. Looking at the deliverables required on the syllabus, three photo essays, the course workload is objectively easy. To some, this was the opportunity to do the least amount of work possible. Anxious to document my semester abroad in a nature that would do it justice, I think the photo essays created in my “Los Abiertos” project is the closest I will ever come to properly capturing the experience.
Fred, my professor, assigned topics to the photo essays for the class, but was flexible in allowing me to craft the assignment that I wanted to complete. Engaged in “Los Abiertos,” I have written far more than the 3,600 words necessary to complete the assignment. Unable to quantify the hours and pages I have written, I would estimate there are 50+ pages of typed thoughts and a nearly filled handwritten journal. The sheer amount that I have written this semester has improved my quality of writing as no English class has previously. Fred’s class has ignited in me a desire to write and create, to capture the world around me in the way I want to portray it. Gaining writing as an outlet, my happiness outside the classroom, has dramatically increased as well. This discovered jubilance will stay with me for the entirety of my life, as I continue to build on the skills that Fred guided me to uncover.
In the same way that my technical writing and photography abilities have objectively improved, the CEA conversational Spanish class yielded great improvement in my Spanish fluency. This class provided the same nature of openness and comfort as my photojournalism class that fostered my ambition to not only master Spanish, but to learn more languages as well. Committed to this goal, I actually scheduled a time each day for me and my dad, a fluent Spanish-speaker, to practice over coffee when I am home in May. I refuse to lose the progress I have made in these four months. A beneficiary of the patience and guidance of an incredible professor, Loli, I have improved far more than ever anticipated.
Loli created an environment that encouraged us to push ourselves, and unlike the United States classroom environment, failure was not punished, but rather celebrated. As a class, we shared and laughed together at stories of cultural faux-pauses we had committed. My friend Jasmin confused “caliente” and “calor,” trying to say she was warm, she instead told her waiter that she was feeling frisky. On the classroom projector, we watched the interview of me speaking about Abroadfest that was broadcast on national Catalan television. Not perfect in my vocabulary or pronunciation by any means, we still celebrated that I was the only abroad student interviewed to speak Spanish. While yes, I was a bit emboldened with liquid courage, I accredit my bravery to conduct the interview in Spanish on live television to the confidence that Loli has built in me each day in the classroom.
Earlier this week I had written in my journal that Loli transformed my abroad experience from the very first day of class, and still I hold this to be true. Having gone four years without so much as whispering a word of Spanish since high school, I was terrified for the first day of class’s language evaluations. But in the one-on-one speaking portion, Loli’s engagement and encouragement made me feel as though the world, at least Spain, was at the tip of my fingertips. In praising my attempts at Spanish, she made me want to practice Spanish. This desire has led me to fascinating conversations and deep friendships with local Spanish-speakers. This semester would be a mere shadow of what it was without my conversational Spanish class. The knowledge obtained in this class became the tools that build meaningful connections and memories with people outside of the American study abroad bubble.
My photojournalism and Spanish courses were valuable in being a blank, welcoming slate for me to write my personal learning story on. On the other side of the spectrum, my international finance class was of equivalent value for my future, but in a dramatically different nature. The class content of the CEA International Finance course could not be more different than what was taught in my more artistic, qualitative courses- there really is no gray area when it comes to foreign exchange rates, they are simply what they are. The structure and certainty of the material, yes or no, right or wrong, honestly was a solace from the absolute chaos of unknowns that I was confronting every day. It was almost cathartic to come into a finance class and crunch numbers that were certainly right or wrong- especially after some of my escapades. My ten question finance worksheet was especially attractive after missing a flight from Amsterdam that stranded me in Stuttgart, Germany without any cellular data and no certainty as to how I would get home; on this worksheet with a little effort, I could be absolutely certain of at least ten things in my life and that was cause for celebration.
More than that, the class was a check of reality, humbling me. I had never taken a finance class before and am heading into a summer working as a sales & trading intern at Goldman Sachs in New York. While yes, I did gain financial knowledge from this class, my main takeaway is the immensity of what I do not know. Even the finance skills I did obtain in class can be refined and improved, my calculations made faster and more precise. This summer will be a boundless learning opportunity, for now I realize how much I have to gain.
Mryiam, my professor in this course, blew me away with her intelligence and quiet confidence. She is brilliant, but did not feel the need to list her accomplishments and work experiences on the first day of class like other professors I have had. Rather, we realized her intelligence over the course of the semester in her teaching, her actions speaking so her resume did not have to. While not a lesson of finance, this is an important insight, one that I will carry with me to the banking world this summer and beyond.
The three classes I took at the CEA Placa Catalunya campus were supplemented by one course at UVic-BAU, a design school close to the beach. This neighborhood was dramatically different than the touristy and bustling streets that surrounded Placa Catalunya; Poble Sec was more industrial, gritty, a bit edgy. I cherished my 45 minute walk to class on Mondays and Wednesdays; the BAU building alone was well-worth walking 45 minutes. Filled with plants, brick and white walls, high ceilings, windows, I spent hours in the extremely hip library filled to the brim with design books. Like a younger sibling who has snuck down the stairs to spy on her older brother’s party, I quietly observed the local, non-study abroad students of BAU in awe.
Edgy, artistic, vivacious, had we turned off the volume of their conversations, we could have easily been in Brooklyn or LA. These black, ripped jean clad students, were to be found with a cigarette dangling from their fingers on the sidewalk before the campus door, effortlessly replaced by a pen or paintbrush once inside. I felt part of something bigger as a fly on the wall of BAU, as I witnessed the protest art and political statements made by the design students. Even merely co-existing in this space helped ground me into the local culture of Barcelona, and venture out from the typical study abroad student experience.
My course, Business, Leaders & Society, reminded me much of the Management Operations courses I love so much back in Ross, but was taught in a very different, very Spanish way. Like Ross, the class was one hundred percent discussion based, with the addition of a few role-play simulations and a guest speaker. There was one exam, one group paper, and one personal paper. Other than that however, there was no work outside of the class. We were not given points for participation, nor graded on how many times we participated. Marti never reprimanded us for using our phones, for being on our computers, for missing too many classes. Once, after the midterm, that was shockingly difficult, he confided in me that he would pass everyone in this class, regardless of their performance on the assignments. This lack of discipline, of the negative KITA that we are so used to in the United States school systems, puzzled and shocked our class.
Despite or because of this, discussions in the course were surprisingly fruitful. Even though we knew that we would not earn a better grade if we participated more, the next hour and a half would be much more enjoyable for all of us if void of the awkward silence that would happen if no one participated. I began to speak with Marti after class and was surprised to learn that advocated for applying methods of yoga and meditation to improve performance of teams and companies- the exact topic I want to research in my senior thesis.
From this class, my most valuable insights came from my biggest failures, mistakes I made in the safety net of knowing I would still pass the course. Our last assignment, an essay about the parable “Who Moved the Cheese,” I did completely wrong. I wrote 11 pages for an assignment that called for a 4 to 5 page essay and completely missed the point. This parable, used to demonstrate the way that overthinking of the human mind hampers our ability to accept change and be fulfilled, exactly echoes the message of The Power of Now, a book I read recently. However, this insight was only garnered in realizing what I did not know, in understanding how incorrectly I had interpreted the parable. My essay was 11 pages of my brain’s overthinking, laid out onto paper as I explored my anxieties and options for careers after graduation- exactly what the parable tells you not to do.
But thankfully, I made this error. I will never forget this assignment, or the story of the two mice who found their cheese. This cheese was found without typing up 11 pages of jabber about where it might be, trying to decide what type of cheese was their favorite, the nutritional content of each, etc. I am grateful that I was completely wrong, because my initial horror to the feedback from Marti is what now propels me towards better understanding what in my life is my “cheese,” my fulfillment. Taking feedback with grace, especially negative feedback, is difficult for me because I am still attached to my ego and am confrontation-adverse. In learning the value of Marti’s feedback, I now commit myself to applying to the feedback I receive, a realization that will serve me this summer as an intern, in the future in all careers and relationships.
So, I leave this feedback, unprompted and unnecessary, for the world to decide what to do with it. I felt called to express my gratitude for my experience studying abroad, as I try to fully comprehend the immense sacrifices and resources that were required to make this possible for me. I know that I will never be able to fully appreciate the work and strain my study abroad experience caused for my family, academic advisors, professors, CEA staff members, friends, and Global Immersions Office at the University of Michigan, but I do know it was not in vain. If my words of gratitude do not suffice, let the world see in my actions the jubilance that studying abroad has created for me. With the tools, relationships, perspective and intellectual curiosity that was ignited in the CEA classrooms and fed by the world around me, I move on to the next chapter of my odyssey. Grateful, revived, energized, I am both an alumni and human expression of the study abroad program that transformed me.