By Matthew Kind, CASA Argentina Fall 2018 (Harvard University '20)

I believe every study abroad student has a, "smack you in your face, make a fool out of yourself, welcome to a new country, WHAAAMM" moment that lets you know you’re away from Harvard and in the real world. Mine came during my first week of class at the largest public university in South America, La Universidad de Buenos Aires Facultad de Derecho. My professor asked everyone to, wait for it... introduce themselves. I mean come on! In my brief introduction, I...

By Kelsey Carpenter, CASA Chile Fall 2018 (Cornell University '20)

When I first arrived in Chile, new faces frequently asked me, “Why did you pick Chile for study abroad?” Truth be told, I did not have a great answer to this inquiry. I did not want to go to Europe alongside the majority of my peers. An advisor recommended the country. I needed a program that supported my major. These answers satisfied the questioner, but they only left me further examining my own decision to study abroad in Chile. I thought that students were supposed to...

By Erica Foster-Allen, CASA Chile Fall 2018 (Brown University '20)

I can say with utmost confidence that the highlight of my stay in Chile was the opportunity to connect with people from a variety of different backgrounds. One of such opportunities came about from a class I enrolled in at the Universidad Diego Portales titled ‘Problemátics contemporáneas en Chile: el aprendizaje servicio como motor de cambio, where the students were divided into groups to volunteer with a variety of centers and foundations in some of the marginalized areas...

By Tom MacMullen, CASA Chile Fall 2018 (Brown '20)

You would think over 5 months in Chile would feel like a large chunk of time away from the States but the reality is that it has felt like 5 weeks. As cliché as it sounds, it is truly remarkable how fast the semester passes. During the orientation week members of the CASA staff told us that the Spring Semester (Fall in U.S.) in Chile has beautiful weather and before you know it you will be enjoying the sunny, blue sky days of December. This was in July and now I’m sitting at my desk in my...

By Gabriela Muñoz, HSI Chile 2018 (Harvard '21)

On a blue skied day in May, I woke up from perhaps the worst sleep I’ve had in years. Within seconds of my eyes adjusting to the bright, white lights and uncurling myself from the uncomfortable position I had adopted while asleep, I remembered that I was on a plane, 5,000 miles away from home, and just minutes from touching down in Santiago, Chile, my new home for the summer. Well, I couldn’t say it was a new home exactly, given that my entire family, including myself, hailed...

By Drashti Brahmbhatt, SIP Chile 2018 (Brown ‘19)

Twice have I foregone warm Providence summers for the cold, rainy winters of the Southern Cone. I remember visiting Santiago, Chile for three days while I was studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the fall of 2017 with the CASA semester program. During one of our free blocks, a few friends and I paid a visit to the Museo de la Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos (MMDH). I was in awe by the museum’s ability to portray such difficult moments of Chilean history in an innovative and powerful manner....

By Kangrong (Allison) Zhang, SIP Chile 2018 (Harvard '20)

While this summer in Chile is not my first time living in a foreign country for an extended period of time, I still felt butterflies in my stomach as I boarded my flight first to Dallas, and then to Santiago. The main reason for such apprehension is a lack of confidence in my Spanish skills. Interestingly, my biggest takeaway from this journey is also increased confidence in my Spanish and more faith in my ability to adjust and connect with others despite language and cultural...

By Claudia Villalona, CASA Argentina Fall 2017 (Brown '19)

I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina for my semester abroad on a chilly and wet winter’s day in the middle of July, having no idea what the next six months would bring. Looking back almost a year later, it is still hard for me to precisely pinpoint what captured my heart and compelled me to stay for another semester. Nonetheless, my time abroad was an experience that truly changed my life: I immersed myself in a culture that was unfamiliar to me and I learned so much about...

By Helen Jack, Harvard Medical School Clinical Rotations in Chile (HMS '18)

Pilo Mella and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) Regional Office in Chile were invaluable as I was setting up two months of clinical rotations at Universidad de Chile. As part of my final year at Harvard Medical School, I hoped to do two months of clinical rotations in Chile to learn about another health system, improve my clinical skills, and become more comfortable with medical Spanish. About four months prior to...

By Evan Lehmann, CASA Argentina Fall 2017 (Brown University '19)

While I was first visiting the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), I wandered into a classroom and was met with two students blanketing the walls in political campaign flyers. With my incredibly non-Argentinian Spanish, I asked if I could help, with hopes of learning a bit about the country’s upcoming elections. “Sí, claro,” one of them responded, and for the next hour, we talked about Argentina’s political climate. I learned about the...