Outcome

I learned a couple of things from my study aboard experience and I know for a fact that I’ll be able to use it again. One thing learn from my experience is the language of course. I basically came on this trip not knowing anything compared to the culture. When I first landed in Spain the language barrier had a pretty drastic gap from theirs and mine. I could tell that it was going to be difficult to speak to people in Valencia just buy listening to people and reading store names and billboards. While being here I learn a lot of new words that’s even different to American Spanish. When I get back to the US I know I can communicate with a different race in their language. Also, I know companies are really impressed with the employees knowing different languages for the company’s benefits. Another thing I picked up on is how to speak to the women out. Let’s say I want to communicate with a woman for company, its totally different then the US because I noticed that everyone love eye contact. You have to make eye contact with them in order to capture their attention to begin the mission of conversing. Trying that back at home can spark up a new form of getting anybody attention. Maybe some people wouldn’t think it’s weird and somewhat think it’s attractive. Third thing I learned is make sure you have every bit of information is right for anything such as bus, metro cards, and anything else. We struggled for weeks getting these transportation cards working for our usage. It seems like no one knew what we need because of miscommunication and lack of information.

My educational background did not help what so ever in this study aboard experience. The knowledge I obtained was nowhere close to the actual field work and equipment I was using. My educational background only helped with formulas and the unit system. The equipment was over my knowledge because the classes I taken wasn’t a high level courses. The impact was really intense and beyond my intelligent from classes. I felt so lost when the equipment arrived and my mentor was telling me about the equipment in use and how I was

going to use them. The first day was difficult because the learning of all this new technology and information was overwhelming. I knew from that day, I wasn’t skilled and prepared for the projects at hand. As my mentor talked on about the technology I began to panic thinking I wasn’t going to do well and not be able to contribute anything. Reading the manuals and articles helped out more than I expected and now have more knowledge to add. Everything I learned before the study aboard experience wasn’t able to help and prepare me.

I know my educational training is good but wasn’t prepared for the educational training I learned over the five weeks. I basically started from the bottom and climb my way up and over each challenge. Educational wise, a challenge I encounter was lack of knowledge on the technology and equipments. I haven’t seen or heard of any of the equipment I used or anyone else’s as well. I expected the job would be more out of the office and in the field to see what happens. I attend a couple of field trips which I seen my international mentor at work. I expected for the project would be more of a design based method. I thought the work experience would’ve been all work and no fun between the men-tees

and the mentors but I was wrong about that. A challenge I encounter was the language barrier between the international mentor and I. I know my mentor expected for me to know more Spanish than I actually knew. There were some phrases and words he could say in English or pronounce correctly but overall he was a great English speaker compared to most people.