Happy New Year!
About this time last year, I was packing and prepping (and stressing) for going abroad to Portugal. Since even before enrolling in college, I had always been sure I wanted to study abroad, so I thought I’d share with you today how I made it happen and how the process works here at Amherst.
I am Brazilian on my father’s side, and have been speaking Portuguese at home my entire life. When I got to college, I began taking courses in the Portuguese department at UMass through the Five College Consortium, which was the beginning of my formal education in the language. If you’re a heritage speaker, you might understand the strange imbalances of fluent comprehension and speaking, but less-than-perfect knowledge of the written language and grammar conventions. My goal for studying abroad was immersing myself in a Portuguese-speaking environment to attain more well-rounded fluency, so I had my sights set on Brazil or Portugal.
All study abroad planning and scheming happens through the Global Education Office (GEO). They have a long list of approved programs on their website, and also allow for students to petition not yet approved programs. The first step happens in April of the academic year before you plan to study abroad, when you have to submit GEO’s study abroad checklist, declaring your plans to study abroad, telling them what semester (I chose spring, which tends to be more popular), and indicating what program you might want to go with. There’s nothing binding about this checklist, but if you don’t fill it out, you cannot study abroad the next academic year. By the time I submitted the checklist, I had decided I wanted to go to Portugal, which was not on the approved list, so I’d have to petition. For my checklist, I indicated another pre-approved program in Edinburgh, Scotland as a backup in case Portugal fell through.
Over the summer going into my junior year, I applied to both the Edinburgh program and the Lisbon program, which both had application deadlines for early fall. Then, I began working on the petition process for Lisbon. It involved a series of essays explaining why this program offered something that other, already approved programs, did not, and about my general interest in studying abroad. Honestly, it was more work than I think it really should be, since my reasoning was pretty simple: there was only one other Portuguese-speaking program, in Brazil, and I wanted to go to Portugal. I was accepted into the Lisbon program in September and my petition was approved by a GEO committee in October, which was a huge relief.
One of the most stressful parts of study abroad for most people is the Visa process, which I luckily avoided because I’m an EU citizen. The Visa pain I avoided was redirected to the terrible process of getting my insurance company to approve a six-month supply of my medication. This is something that nobody ever talks about, but it’s a seriously time-intensive task and I found it incredibly stressful. After hours and hours on the phone I eventually got a scheme figured out where they’d give me 3 months at a time and my family would bring the rest when they visited. I also had to get very familiar with cooler and ice pack technology, as my meds have to stay refrigerated. Other important things to have figured out is your bank account (do you have a debit card you can use overseas without huge fees) and phone plan (does your US service provider have an international plan or will you need a local SIM card upon arrival). I switched bank accounts to one with no international fees, and luckily my phone plan was fine as is. By now, you might be imagining that the period before going abroad is not really that fun. But it’s necessary, and if you’re organized and just get it done, it’ll make your life while abroad much easier.
Next week I’ll write about the actual fun part, which is being abroad! I’ll also talk about how academic credit works. Stay tuned. In the meantime, feel free to reach out with questions: swolff25@amherst.edu