Amherst College Global Education Blog
I’m done traveling throughout Southeast Asia and I’m glad I did it as ‘stepping out’ has allowed me to see Japan as more of an outsider once again. I’m not really one for museums but I do make sure to read up a little about a country’s history, demographics, etc. during my visit and this often led me to find
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Hey, readers! I’m back from my hiatus from blogging and I’m more than ready to update you on my adventures throughout Chile! April was quite a busy month, full of traveling to new places in this dynamic country and adjusting to the workload here. I find my academic life studying abroad just as challenging and demanding as the classes back
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Nearly all my classes this semester have been related to Spain. I’m taking a class on Spanish art history, a class on 20th Century Spanish history, and a Spanish language class. My travel seminar at the beginning of the semester was about the formation of the Spanish empire. Back when I was choosing a study abroad program, I looked for
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On Travel Mistakes I’ve had plenty of time to make mistakes this semester. It comes with the territory of being a 20 year old in a new country. I was expecting to mess up, but back in January I didn’t know exactly how I’d do it. Now though, after a few months abroad, it’s easy to pick out my top
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The other day I was WhatsApping (text via wifi, the best app ever) my mom. I was telling her about my day and mentioned that I was going to go read in the park then head home. She replied that it nice to hear me calling my homestay “home.” I hadn’t noticed my casual use of the term, but her
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Hey everyone! For this week I’ll be writing a bit about what I’ve learned about the Japanese education system. I guess the most logical way to go about it is to go through chronologically, but an important distinction to make from the start is that their school year begins in April and ends in March, so long term breaks like
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Blog honesty moment: I’m writing this post instead of working on my art history paper. The paper that I’ve barely started. The paper that’s due in, approximately 36 hours. Now at Amherst, I’d be gnawing my elbow off with worry about that paper. But here abroad? It’s not bothering me too much. I know I’ll get it done. It probably won’t
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Back after two weeks! For this week’s blog I thought I would make a video showing what a day studying abroad in Japan might be like. This was on a Friday, so I just had Japanese class and then the rest of my day to venture around. Please turn on the subtitles and enjoy! Bear with my translations…I tried to
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Can We Talk about Race? “What is the percentage of blacks in the United States?” I definitely did not anticipate some of my classmates’ answers to this question in my class on race and ethnicity in the Americas in Chile. Thirty percent! Fifty percent! (What?) My reaction was immediately to jump in and assert that the black population was actually only
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I am taken by surprise with just how many festivals and celebrations I’ve encountered in Japan, especially in Kyoto. You’re sure to find a couple a month, even sometimes a couple on the same day, and it’s not too uncommon to randomly get caught in the middle of one while walking down a street. The great part is, many of
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