I chose to participate in the Summer Language Abroad program in Costa Rica for a few reasons: I wanted to have a smaller spanish language immersion experience before my semester abroad in Chile (spring 2024), I wanted to try to both improve my spanish and do a physics-related internship during the summer, and I wanted to have a cultural immersion experience in a Central American country (since I went to Spain with ND summer 2022 and will study abroad in South America). Initially, I was more focused on the first two reasons—growing my academic proficiency—but as I’ve been working through the preparation activities, I’ve seen that I need (and want) to put more focus on cultivating my cultural competency while abroad this summer. I’ve realized just how unique and special an opportunity it is to be able to not only live in a different country, but to have the resources of Notre Dame and the Praxis Center (the program I’m doing my immersion through) to dive deeper—academically and more casually—into immersion in Costa Rica. I’m extremely excited and eager for the exponential growth in knowledge and experiences I am about to encounter, but I am also trying to be mindful about the ways I’m preparing myself to most effectively absorb and reflect on my time abroad.
I hope to grow in my intercultural competency, my ability to critically analyze my own culture(s), and my ability to successfully bridge gaps between cultures to form stronger, more informed, and more thoughtful relationships with others. Using the tools from metrics like the IDI and other classes/conversations that I will have abroad will give me the language to articulate and reflect on my own experiences. I think that the IDI’s descriptions of the “minimization” mindset accurately reflect how I currently address and interact with culture and cultural differences. For most of my life, I’ve felt that I don’t have a strong “culture” that I identify with, and so have tried to approach cultural differences with an emphasis on common humanity while also being respectful of cultural practices or beliefs that have differed from my own personal beliefs. However, after coming to college, I’ve come to discover that although I may not feel like I come from a strongly rooted ethnic or national identity, I come from a unique set of communities—family, the city I grew up, white middle class American suburbia, etc.—that have practices, rituals, and ways of perceiving the world that have influenced me heavily. It will likely take longer than just this summer, but I think that the best way to be able to acknowledge and understand cultural differences—and be able to bridge them effectively—is to live within a culture and try to understand its values, function, and practices.
My hope for improving my language abilities is that I will feel much more comfortable speaking in Spanish, especially with native speakers. I think that my class in grammar and conversation will definitely help with this, as one of my biggest embarrassments when trying to speak is that my foundation of grammar and vocabulary is a bit shaky and patched together. However, I think that simply being forced to speak Spanish in casual everyday contexts—with my host family, teachers, classmates, servers, people on the street—is what will propel my growth in proficiency and confidence. I know that this goal will require work on my end both intellectually by working hard in classes, and on a more personal level by overcoming my embarrassment of making mistakes and reframing them as learning opportunities.
My current plan to ensure I’m actively reflecting is to journal while abroad. Instead of a traditional journaling method—which I’ve always found myself unable to uphold for extended periods of time—I’ve decided to keep a travel journal separated into the five different sections Impressions, Descriptive, Narrative, Expressive, and Personal. I may alter the categories a bit, or potentially blend some together, but I think this method will allow me to have more focused entries; my biggest qualm with journaling is that I always have too many thoughts and want to incorporate too many different ideas into a journal entry than I have the patience for. Thus, separating journal entries by intention will make them much more manageable. Furthermore, I think especially the Expressive and Personal sections will be wonderful places to expand into the type of deep, critical reflections I’m hoping to have while abroad and which are hard to fully flesh out when trying to talk about everything in a singular daily journal entry.
I can’t wait to start on my summer journey, and look forward to writing again from Costa Rica!