More reflections

A job application I recently completed asked me some thought provoking questions reflecting on my time abroad. This is one of the questions (and my answer) that I found really personally rewarding to answer.

How did your experiences affect you personally, professionally, and academically?

It is hard to put into words how my experiences in Brazil have affected me, but here is my best effort. Academically, I took classes in Portuguese, Community Development, Brazilian Foreign Policy and Social Political and Economic History of Brazil. As a Psychology and Political Science major (with minors in Latin American Studies and Portuguese) these courses were very interesting to me because they aligned directly with my passions. Specifically, I really enjoyed my course on Brazilian Foreign Policy because I learned how to think about world events from a completely different perspective. This class included students from many countries, all of whom had different perspectives on current world events and policies. I also found it very interesting to learn the Brazilian perspective of US actions such as the war in Iraq and interventions within South America. I was constantly comparing articles I read in the New York Times to articles in Brazilian newspapers, which told the story of the same event in different ways. Overall, I learned that in the academic world, you must always consider your cultural perspective when analyzing anything.

Professionally, I learned that I would enjoy living and working abroad. However, I also think it is very important to learn the language of the place you are living. I can’t even count how many times Brazilian’s attitudes towards me completely changed once they realized that I was learning Portuguese. So many doors were opened to me when people saw that I respected their culture and was making the effort to learn their language. I also learned that I do not think I would like teaching English long-term to children. I certainly enjoyed my experience but was surprised how difficult and draining it is to teach children. Perhaps I would like to teach adults after more training. Finally, I took the opportunity to visit the American Consulate in Rio to speak with a State Department official about employment opportunities. I learned about many opportunities to work abroad and plan on looking into jobs with the State Department and other US agencies that work internationally.

Personally, I grew more than I thought possible. When my mom visited me for the week, she commented on how much more confident I seemed. In general, I think that I learned the importance of a simpler and less stressful life. This is something that really struck me when I first arrived because people do not have any “extra” things that they don’t use in their homes or in their lives. They value everything they have, which is something I know that I could certainly work on. Also, for my Community Development class, I visited several favelas around Rio with classmates who live there. They showed us the realities that these people face, both good and bad, and I learned the importance of using whatever you have to help others. Most of my classmates were on scholarships to study at my university and some commuted more than two hours each way to get to class. They did all of this happily because they felt blessed to have the opportunity to go to college. They also planned to return to use what they learned to better their communities. I hope to keep these lessons with me to wherever I go from here.