Middlebury C.V. Starr Schools Abroad

DON'T be afraid to mess up when speaking the local language! If you allow the fear of locals judging your mistakes to hold you back from doing social things, you'll never grow--and in the case of most language immersion programs, that's why you came in the first place!

Take every opportunity to do activities with local people (whether that's bar trivia, watching a movie, or an activity you do back home) and you'll not only drastically improve your language proficiency but also likely make a lot of new friends!

I'd make my own meals in my shared apartment kitchen, run around the multiple parks in the area to exercise, walk to class at the University, study in between classes, and end my day with an evening activity that depended on the day of the week.

Monday/Wednesday it was rehearsals with the University choir; Tuesday/Thursday was trivia/language exchange nights at my favorite bar, and my weekends were spent taking lessons at the local music school (and practicing), as well as singing with the Cathedral Choir at Mass.

My biggest fear was that the locals (Andalusians speak FAST, and tend to leave off intervocalic/terminal consonants) would become frustrated with my comparatively slow/imperfect Spanish and refuse to interact with me and/or dislike me. I overcame this through my joining the University choir and participating in language exchange nights at the local bar.

It's a widely accepted fact that music is a universal language, and thanks to my extensive prior choir experience, I was able to follow along in rehearsal even if I didn't initially understand every word the conductor spoke and was able to connect over a shared interest (music). The language exchange nights were designed for the locals to practice their English (which of course was far from perfect!) and helped me be less afraid to make mistakes when speaking--and eventually, the more I spoke and got used to using the language 24/7, the better my Spanish got!

I got to sing in a 1000-year-old mosque-cathedral--just by asking (and mentioning my music experience/training, of course)! I also managed to fit all of my (important) stuff (that hadn't already been shipped back home) in a carry-on bag when the baggage handlers went on strike the day before I left the country--INVEST IN VACUUM SEAL BAGS, YOU'LL THANK ME LATER.

Also, I tried blood sausage (YUM), snails (overrated), white wine mixed with Sprite AKA rebujito (surprisingly good), fried eggplant dipped in honey (YUM, as odd as the combination sounds), and a ton of other foods (many of which I taught myself to recreate back home).

I grew up in a very small town of India, in an age where globalization was a very far off thing. The large Atlas at my home was the only gateway to far off lands. Names of places like Saskatchewan and Newfoundland would amaze me.

Also, it was the era of cold war where India was aligned with the then U.S.S.R. We would receive a lot of Russian promotional magazines and low priced Russian classics. The illustrated magazines brought Russian culture and community to life for us. This is one country that I have always wanted to visit.

I would love to visit not only Moscow and St. Petersburg but also the rural hinterland of Russia. I also want to see the famed cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent which were part of the former U.S.S.R.

Language learning and cultural immersion are complimentary to each other. You cannot have one without the other. These are the two aspects of study abroad that make the learning complete. Reading books and watching movies/ videos gives you a just a glimpse of life in a different culture.

When you travel to another country, live through the experience, only then do you realize the cultural differences. It sensitizes you to the culture of your host country. You have to live in a country to make your experience real.

Knowing the language brings out the context of simple things like TV commercials, popular songs. A few sentences in the local language endears you to people around you. This creates an opportunity for true immersion in the host culture.

I have travelled to different parts of India and 19 countries in the world. Each travel has been a unique experience.

The one experience that stands out is of traveling from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji in Japan. Equipped with some instruction on a piece of paper in Japanese (which I can neither read nor understand), started our three hour journey with two train changes. Using sign language and showing around the small piece of paper combined with the precision of Japanese trains, we had a beautiful journey taking us to our destination.

The other incident that stands out is of my first visit to Paris. As we hurriedly got down at an interchange station, my husband exclaimed that we were at the wrong station. Instead of ‘Villiers’ we had disembarked at ‘Sortie’. For a moment I panicked and looked at the signs at regular intervals only to realize that sortie was the French for exit.

The concept of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, a Sanskrit phrase which embodies the philosophy that the whole world is one family, is at the core of our program.

India is a multi-cultural country. Each region of India is diverse in its culture and language. Yet there is unity in this diversity. It is a country that teaches you to respect diverse cultures and adapt best practices from each.

Our program helps our students to learn from India’s religious pluralism and cultural diversity.