By Chris Packs, CASA Chile Spring 2019 (Brown University ’20)
Arriving in Santiago one week before the start of the semester, I knew I would struggle to choose my classes. Although I was already familiar with the concept of a shopping period—a two week window in the beginning of the semester to try out classes, as opposed to registering beforehand—the process has always caused me anxiety. Like many of my peers at Brown (where I study in the U.S.), I typically overextend myself, shopping less out of desire than self-imposed pressure. In Santiago, able to decide between nearly any class in three universities (each respectively larger than Brown) this pressure only intensified. Clearly I wouldn’t be able to go to every class that caught my eye in the course catalogues, but, on top of my usual fear of missing a class I find interesting, this time around I was motivated by the study abroad trope of needing to take advantage of every possible opportunity for a new experience. Caught between these two mindsets, I burned myself out running between classrooms on opposite sides of the city, envying my classmates enjoying a leisurely return to the school year after their summer vacations. This experience of burnout so early was my first lesson.
In my experience of it, campus culture in the U.S. is totalizing—most students eating, sleeping, studying, etc. within a constrained bubble (so the metaphor goes). In addition to the emotional and psychological tolls, one of the biggest challenges of living in this insulated, hyper-pressurized culture is imagining a life outside of it—outside of regularly staying in the library past midnight, of experiencing education as a takeover of your personal life. And in this sense my semester in Chile served as a re-orientation of my priorities. Getting to watch how students in a different context choose to relate to their academic and personal commitments provided an alternative, one that prizes a freedom to deviate from what’s being demanded of you. I think to how, in response to the President’s attempt to cut History from the curriculum of Chilean high schools, students studying History at the University of Chile voted to paralyze classes (paro) for over a month (a relatively tame act of protest, but far outside campus political discourse in the U.S.). Or to late-fall afternoons at the vibrant Juan Gomez Millas campus at the University of Chile, with students sprawled around Calama (the central quad), selling old clothes or baked goods from the night before. On my part, I’ve felt encouraged to balance academic expectations with making new experiences—whether walking to a museum after class or taking a bus to Valparaíso over the weekend. Clearly a large part of this relief comes from the deeply privileged position of exchange students in Chile (especially from elite institutions in the U.S.), but I think I found real value in moments of personal social and political engagement with the communities I found myself in, and reflecting that experience back on my own identity and experience. And one result of that reflection for me has been the chance to envision what a healthier relationship to Brown would look like as I enter my final year.
One weekend at the end of April, representatives from a number of study abroad departments of universities in the U.S. came to Santiago to learn about and evaluate the CASA program. More than anything, I was fascinated (and sometimes taken aback) by the logic of what makes a ‘good’ study abroad program in the eyes of a university, and how much labor goes into efficiently maximizing the experience of each individual student; the student must be able to travel, integrate in local universities, conduct research, carry out an internship, etc. Something about it felt out of touch with where I was at in that moment, as clearly what I had most taken away had nothing to do with a research project to taut back in the U.S., but to do with spending Sunday afternoons eating a slow meal with my host family, walking to the metro with someone new after class, or decoding a new sticker on Whatsapp (they can get complicated). All moments that felt relatively uncalculated—or at least outside the evaluation of what makes a study abroad program ‘good’ or ‘bad’—but entirely a result of the deep logistical and emotional support of the program I was situated in and the people I was with. More than anything, near the end of my semester here, it’s most difficult to imagine myself back at Brown, crossing through the vacant late-fall Main Green, when I think about what a second semester in Santiago would have been like, sharing a lunch after class as the days continue getting longer. At least I know, then, I’ll be breathing a little easier, and maybe won’t have such a hard time picking classes.