Since receiving the Harvey Scholarship, I knew that I wanted to use my travel grant to study for at least a semester in Spain where I still have family. I chose the University of Oviedo, because it seemed like it would be a good place to work on my Spanish since it was located in a rural province of Spain. My experience in Spain was initially very tough as I struggled being so far away from home in a completely different environment. Even though I am originally from Queens, NY and attend Mines, being so far away from home after a while took its toll on me. Making lots of friends abroad that were going through the same thing definitely helped get me through it and allowed me to have an amazing experience.

I got to travel around the Northern part of Spain with Blake, which was awesome. He flew into New York where I showed him around for a day before we flew into Spain and stayed with my grandmother in Madrid. We traveled to Oviedo after my cousin gave us a tour of Madrid. From there we both joined the Erasmus Student Group at Oviedo, which is an organization for international students in Europe. I now have friends throughout the world. The coolest part about studying in Europe was that it was so easy to go from country to country. My best friend in New York was also studying in Switzerland so I was more easily able to meet up with him in places like Budapest, Nice, Barcelona, and Prague.

While I was in Spain, I took a course on java and a business class. I also took two Spanish classes for foreigners and an environmental engineering course. The way in which college courses are taught in Spain is very different from what I was accustomed to. I was not used to just having a final exam and maybe a midterm worth very little of your grade. This way of learning was initially tough as I was used to being that responsible for my studying on my own. We were not given a whole lot of practice problems either so it was mostly studying off of my notes and textbook. However, this style of learning allowed me to travel to so many places on the weekends and many holidays in Spain.

This experience really challenged me and allowed me to grow as a person. It also showed me that I really love learning other languages and experiencing different cultures. Moreover, this experience led me to visiting my friend Agni in Mexico City (which was my first ever trip to Mexico) for this past fall break and encouraged me to plan more trips to other Latin American countries so that I can continue to work on my Spanish.