Adrienne Cooper

For the last two years, Covid-19 has isolated people, around the world. Social distancing  shut down international travel. But that has begun to change. Since September 2021, as the Department of Education began to consider things like being able to attend school in person, life has started to feel a little bit normal. That includes study abroad.

Students at Penn State Abington will be able to study abroad in places like Salamanca, Spain in a faculty-led embedded study abroad program is for students taking Spanish 1,2,3 ,10 or 20.

As a participating student, I’m looking forward to exploring everything about Spanish culture, and learning as much as I can with this life changing experience. Travel to Spain with the program is approaching within the next few weeks. Starting March 4th 2022, all students/staff attending will meet up together at Philadelphia International Airport to board and start the journey to Salamanca. While on this trip students will study culture aspects of Spanish and European sociocultural reality and their manifestations in language, literature; art; music, and museums and historical events, celebration and festivals.

Professor Mejias, who is an assistant teacher of English and Spanish at Penn State Abington and the program leader for the faculty led study abroad program for Spain. Mejias says, “I started the program in 2016 where a proposal was put through to the CIDC Committee and from there we have done the program every year since, but because the pandemic we had to cancel in 2021.”

Students also explore the geopolitical conditions that influence the present Salamanca, Segovia and Madrid. Which are the other two cities the students will visit.

Professor Mejias, expresses her experience “as an educator to see the students and how they evolve in visiting another country and emerging in different culture outside the United States, (European) culture. That to me is amazing because students grow from the trip. It’s experiential; educational and informative. A lot of students end up going back either for themselves or with their families.”

All students will take a two hour class Monday-Friday at the Universidad de Salamanca, (USAL) where the students will also reside in the residence halls.

Even though Covid-19 is still affecting travel, Penn State is taking every single precaution to make sure that we all are safe and Covid-19 free going and coming back home. With consistent updates on if anything changes, vaccination updates and requirements, and test taking. There pretty strict guidelines for all attending to be safe.

Professor Mejias says the best parts of the trip are, “Number one, the opportunity for many students to travel abroad that have never traveled ever and to see how students gain and insight in how to travel to a different country not just in the United States. Number two, that it is definitely and educational experience in many aspects not only for maturity,  but for the course itself learning the language and cultural diversity, and number three, that overall, the whole experience of traveling allows you to see a different world.”

Going on a trip like this is engaging, informative–but let’s not forget FUN. This opportunity shouldn’t be passed up if it comes your way.

Penn State Abington has more faculty led study abroad embedded programs coming later this year such as Scotland  and Iceland

Expande tus horizontes.  Adios!