An American Abroad in Spain

Strengths:

Some of my strengths, when it comes to traveling abroad and learning about new cultures include my passion for learning about new cultures. I love learning about how the world is different and how people are different. It's interesting to see how they live their everyday lives opposed to someone else and opposed to me. Another strength I have is my understanding. I have had many different interactions with people from all across the world, and I believe that diversity helps my knowledge and ability to understand that not everyone is the same. I am also very open minded. I will try almost anything at least once, which is more than most people will do. Many things are scary, but we only have one life so we can not be afraid of anything. We have to explore and face things with bravery.

Challenges:

I do not always use the correct choice of words at times, so I believe that will be my biggest challenge. Learning what to say and when to say it is very difficult to be because I usually don't think before I speak. I am also a generally happy person, so people sometimes mistake my jokes for sarcasm or anger. I believe the strategies I will use to not offend anyone while studying abroad will definitely being learning offensiveness and cultural norms when I arrive by speaking with my host family.

Education:

I am going to try to educate my host family and others in my host country about the true south, about food, and our lifestyles. I will try to combat many different stereotypes about Americans as I can. I will also try to learn everything I can about and in my host country. I will also keep in touch with the people I hope to make friendships with while I am abroad. I am not quite sure what I have yet to learn about my own culture, I guess that will just be a learning experience for me. However, I am going to teach about my thoughts on the modern culture as well as the traditional culture I grew up learning about. Overall, I believe I will teach about family values as a whole and individualism.