Skip to main content

Koret Fellowships 2016-2017

Noann Sanchez
Psychology & Sociology major, Class of 2019

There are not enough pages or words to adequately describe my experience in Barcelona. I feel like there were three things that really affected my experience there; my ethnicity, my cultural experiences, and my overall experience with traveling in general. Even before my arrival in Barcelona I had a huge failure; my flight had been delayed two days. Therefore this meant that I would miss my orientation; this included a tour of the city, the center where my classes were held, and general public transportation tips. This also meant that upon my arrival to Barcelona my first big challenge was getting to my homestay completely on my own and putting blind faith in the taxi driver. I had to immediately start speaking Spanish which I lacked confidence in and ensure that I was understanding the driver correctly. The fear that my communication had holes in it, stayed in the pit of my stomach the entire ride. In fact I do not think that the pit left until I saw a strange woman outside of her apartment waving me down. I would come to find out that this was to be my amazing host mom.

When first meeting my host family, they were overjoyed that I could understand everything that they were saying and that they really only needed to give me the tools to respond to them. I immediately felt at home because of the familiar tongue. However, I would quickly come to find that Catalan people were different than Mexicans. There were certain similarities such as the collectivist mentality. But, inherently we were a completely different culture; with differences in items such as food. I would consistently get correct on my spanish, because as they described my spanish it was simply “not the right way” to say something.

 I remember in the beginning that all the spanish I was confident in they quickly took away that confidence for me. They constantly corrected phrases that had become so familiar during family gatherings. Throughout my time there I definitely learned how to practice more of a flexible ethnocentrism. There was not one right Spanish and I needed to accept those differences and learn to live with them while in my new environment. This type of lesson was priceless and helped me better navigate when I visited different countries. It helped me develop a more open mindset that would allow me to have a better experiences with different cultures.

I would also come to realize that traveling in conjunction with learning in class would impact my perspective on my goals in life. One particular class that I took abroad was focused on crime in different parts of Europe along with America. The class went over how different parts of Europe dealt with items such as protests and drug abuse. The class aimed to give you cases where the systems in Europe seemed flawless and how the system failed. The emphasis of giving a global perspective encouraged me to think about social justice issues that I am passionate about on a global scale. At the start of my journey I believed that I wanted to work with juvenile delinquents on a more local scale but after being exposed to other global issues, I realized the human rights field is where my passion truly lies. I hope to help shape better policy and use my knowledge to help other countries that may not have the resources that the U.S. has.

Finally, these passions were reinforced with the opportunities I received to travel to other countries such as Lisbon, Portugal. The only way that I had the opportunities to visit other places besides Spain was the fellowship and for that I am very grateful. Visiting other countries assisted in me practicing speaking to different backgrounds and learning how to deal with racial intolerances in some cases. I did have instances, such as in Germany, where people would refer to me as the help because of my more dark complexion. Instances such as these encouraged me to have the confidence to answer these people when they looked at my skin and immediately asked me where I was from. In general my abroad experience was one of the most transformative experiences that I will ever have; I am so grateful I got the opportunity to not only go on the trip but was given the means to really complete my trip the way I dreamed. 

 

Noann studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain