Student Blog

This semester I will be going on an international exchange through the University of Victoria to the Madrid, Spain where I will attend the University of Alcalá. I will live in the municipality of Alcalá de Henares for five months while I am attending school. I am so excited to embark on this amazing journey where I will experience a new culture, language and way of living. With this incredible opportunity I have been given I hope to be able to immerse myself in Spanish culture and also be able to explore other parts of Europe. I am also looking forward to creating a network of international and local friends while I am on my exchange in Madrid. On my journey I will meet so many other students coming from other parts of the world as well as the local Spanish students. I look forward to expanding m...

After seeing eight countries and eighteen different cities, I am finally back in Vancouver. I was quite sad to say goodbye to my apartment, friends, and my favorite city, Berlin. It was definitely a mixed feeling between excitement to see my family, especially my brother whom I had not seen for two years and his new wife; and sadness at leaving Berlin. 

When I returned to Vancouver, I immediately had a wedding to go to and I experienced right away a major culture shock. I hadn’t dressed up, worn heels, or done my hair or make up in ages. Berlin in particular is not a place for any of that. Unlike Vancouver, Berlin was very simple: people there don’t ever wear high heels or care much about being fancy. Therefore, I felt uncomfortable being at the wedding. I didn’t even feel like I was mysel...

The last few weeks of my trip were tiring and hard, but worth the effort for the work we were doing. For the last two weeks of the trip, we worked in schools with children in kindergarten to grade six mostly. These children have never had the opportunity to have their teeth cleaned. While we did not have the time or resources to clean each and every single child’s teeth, we were able to apply fluoride to help make their teeth stronger and decrease the chances of further decay from occurring. We also provided them with information on how to properly brush their teeth. We travelled by car to many different areas surrounding Cebu City. We spent a week at Mount Olives Christian School in Consalasion and Mandaue. We spent three days at Napo Elementary School in Napo, Guadalupe and we spent the last tw...

It is hard to prepare yourself for a different culture because you never really know what you are going to get. Before travelling to the Philippines, I did research, but it did not come close to preparing me for the culture shock I was about to experience.

Upon arriving in the Philippines, the weather was hot and humid, which was expected. We gathered our things and proceeded to climb into a van with our entire luggage. I was definitely not prepared for the scariest drive of my life! In the Philippines, drivers and motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, sometimes travelling at high speeds on the very crowded roads.

After settling in, we explored the neighbourhood. I never imaged that we would see the roads littered with garbage and so much pollution in the air. I have heard from...