Outcomes

Now that I am back in the states at home reflecting on the trip I have realized I learned a lot over the past five weeks. This was a great experience for me in terms of both engineering and my education and I really appreciated being part of this program. It is definitely something I'll remember for my whole life. 

I learned several things as a result of this very unique study abroad experience. I learned how to communicate a lot better. Living and working in a city that you are not fluent in the language helps you learn to communicate better since you can’t get your exact point across. It helped me to be able to be less of a perfectionist in that way too. I know some Spanish, but obviously when learning a language mistakes will happen. I do not know how to say everything perfect and this study abroad experience helped me learn that it is okay. I had a lot of conversations where me and the other person probably missed a lot of what we each were trying to say. However, usually we still got the main point of what we were trying to say to each other. Learning how to say things very concise and simple is a very important thing to learn for all parts of life really. But of course I did learn more Spanish, so I will be able to speak more Spanish as a result of this experience. I plan to continue learning Spanish and this experience boosted my Spanish speaking confidence so feel more comfortable practicing the language. This experience helped me realize how much Spanish I actually know. 

Going to Paris with very little knowledge of french made me really realize how much spanish I knew!



I also learned that being on the other side of the world does not really feel any different. Also the differences in technology has helped me learn to be less dependent on it. I care way less about always having my phone with me and fully charged at all times. 

My old school spanish phone

My educational background made some of an impact on my ability to perform on my project. Being a senior in the engineering program with some internship experience helped me feel pretty comfortable with my ability to do well in the program. This project was not incredibly technical though so I do think underclassman would have been just fine with it as well. I think that after all the engineering classes I have taken so far, I knew how to manage my time with the project and also how to work individually. My mentor was very busy so she didn’t have time to explain every tiny thing to me so I had to be able to learn on my own.

This is me and my mentor on the final presentation day

I didn’t have many challenges with the differences in educational training. I really liked the mix of educational backgrounds that were chosen. I think it is great to have people from different points in the degree. I feel like my mentor wasn’t very clear on what was expected of me and I honestly wasn’t clear for a while either. I understood we needed to do the poster and all of that but I was not sure how technical I was supposed to get. My mentor was very helpful and didn’t overwhelm me with things that were out of my range of understanding. She was very patient. Since I’m a visual learner, the language barrier wasn’t a huge problem. I would read the standards in English and then watch the test and ask questions after if I was unclear. Overall, I wasn’t really sure what to expect with the program, but I didn’t expect to be doing what I did. My project was certifying safety equipment so it really didn’t feel like research. My hypothesis didn’t seem like something I was even really able to prove, especially in just four weeks. Overall I still learned a lot about my topic from my mentor and my own reading. Honestly the blogs and reflection paper were challenging for me. It seems so simple to write but I haven’t wrote non-technical papers in so long it is a little strange to get used to.

Social Indentity

Well I definitely had some misconceptions about this place and this program. I realized I'd been grouping Spanish culture in with Latin American culture a lot, when in reality they are very different. The food is so different here comparatively! I JUST WANT SALSAAAA or anything spicy. Tabasco sauce is literally the only spicy thing here. Even the peppers at the market are like fake or something.

I also thought I'd be learning spanish like crazy and its really disappointing that I'm not. I thought it'd be really easy to write blogs about my experience here but it honestly feels more like an assignment that I'm trying to get out of the way so I can actually experience things. I thought I would feel like I'm on the other side of the world and I really don't. I thought Europe was a lot smaller than it is; people always say, "oh yeah you can just pop on a train and go all over Europe in a jiffy." But its really not that easy.. or cheap. Kavitha and I just booked flights to Paris for the last week and if we were to take a train it'd be like 11 hours or something.. thats not exactly a jiffy and that train ride is almost twice the price of flying.

I thought I'd get kinda homesick but this time has gone by so fast that I really didn't have time to. I am starting to count down the days though so maybe I am a little. I can't really tell the difference between getting irritable or stressed out about things here and homesickness. It'll be nice to be back home though. I thought getting away from everyone for a while would make me think about things and my life in general differently too. I've been wanting to move away from Arlington for a while thinking it would change things or change my perspective. If being on the other side of the world doesn't change my view, I doubt being three hours away will either. I guess it's really hard to define how i see things without being super biased though, so I'm not really sure how to say how I'm viewing this experience or how I view experiences in general. Everyone said wow you'll be so different when you come back from Spain and its really hard for me to tell if I will be. But I did enjoy ham here and would never eat it in a million years at home so I guess I have.

Cultural Identity
 Like I've said before the customer service attitude is different. It's easy to complain about the customer service here, but honestly back home in customer service jobs sometimes I wished more than anything I could act like this to some of the terrible people you encounter in those kind of jobs. But I never wanted to be mean to nice customers! In Barcelona, there was a restaurant advertising a deal for 2 tapas + paella for 11,95 euro. Seemed like a good deal so me, Kavitha, and Ariel (all being nice customers) stopped in. We were about to go out for the night and weren't really hungry so we just wanted to share one order. Well apparently that doesn't fly in the tourist section of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. The waiter acted like we were absolutely insane and told us his manager would kill him if he let us do that. We kinda argued a little and then I noticed these two spanish guys next to us were sharing! So I pointed and said, "well why are they sharing a meal?" Finally he was said, "I can let you order two instead of all three but not just one. Oh and you have to get separate drinks." Umm of course we were going to get our own sangrias. He was so rude and at that moment I was really glad that tipping the waiters isn't a thing here.
So that's another cultural attitude difference, in America the waiters try to be super nice so they get a good tip. Also, since it's so difficult to split checks here and to get receipts they obviously have different attitudes about dining out and money. I think it shows they value money less that Americans do. If you go out with your friends, they obviously don't have to split the bill perfectly or even split it at all. They don't rush you out of restaurants either, they want you to relax and have a nice time out. Maybe they don't give receipts because they don't have the same entitlement attitude that Americans have. If you lose a couple euros then its like okay well oops maybe next time you won't, the moneys not "yours" anymore here after you pay. In america its seems like people think they deserve so much. When you accidentally buy something, you still "deserve" that money back in America. Now that I think about it, returns are kinda a weird concept. From a business owner perspective, I can see what seems to be the spanish point of view. Why is it the business' problem that you messed up? They are kind of doing you a favor. I think "deserving" things is such a weird concept in general. When I got this opportunity people kept telling me I deserve it and It's hard for me to think that other people didn't, I just think it's luck almost or something that just happened. Also with the money I'm getting from this, It's so easy for me to spend since I wouldn't have had it otherwise, I don't feel like it's "mine" or something I deserve. I guess that's part of my social identity. I don't come from a rich family or a super poor one either. Having tons of money saved up doesn't make me happy just as buying material things doesn't but I have no problem at all paying for experiences. I definitely didn't do engineering for the money and I never want to have to think about money. When my dad lost his job when I was little I didn't even really know and when my mom couldn't work anymore, my dad never said a word about financial problems even if there were some. I'm really glad that's part of my family's culture, I feel like it's pretty different that the typical american view on money. I never really realized this until this trip and seeing how different Spain is with money. I think It's very related to how calm everyone is here given the economic problems. It's very different than the American attitude during economic crisis.