STUDY ABROAD PROGRAMS
Every year students from BYU travel around the world to learn outside of the classroom. We visited with programs in Spain and Portugal to hear about how their experience was going.
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BYU Students in Spain Learn Nursing Culture
Experiential Learning Final
BYU Spain study abroad students share their experiences
Portugal Study Abroad provides cultural tradition, exploration to students
By Jillian Argento
The white walls and curtains inside each apartment reflected the sunlight, brightening up the room. Smells of traditional Portuguese food traveled from the kitchen as students prepare a meal of chicken and rice with fresh bread and salad.
The sounds of breaking waves accompanied the comforting summer breeze, making Lisbon a welcoming and tranquil location to experience the heart of Portuguese culture.
A sun-filled apartment building along the Lisbon coast is where 17 students call home for seven weeks.
In just its second year, BYU’s Study Abroad program based in Portugal’s capital city focuses on pushing students who are fluent in Portuguese to have their own experiences, according to program supervisor and professor James Krause.
“Since the students speak the language, they are willing to go out on their own and explore the city without the oversight of the program director,” Krause said.
Portugal was founded in 1142, which marked the beginning of a wide-reaching global empire for the country. Towering statues honoring Portuguese historical figures from government leaders to war heroes to angels line the streets of Lisbon. Driving around the city, one can see these vertical monuments at the center of each traffic circle every few blocks.
Along the water is the Cristo Rei, or the Christ the King statue. Inspired by the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, the immense monument was constructed in 1959 to represent Portugal’s gratitude for being spared in World War II.
Not far beyond the monument is the 25 de Abril Bridge, which is famously compared to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. The bright red paint can be seen from any part of Lisbon’s coast.
During the seven-week term abroad, these students learn not only about Portugal’s history and its culture, but their own relationships with others through the language of Portuguese.
According to the Kennedy Center, students “will explore Portuguese culture by visiting medieval and Renaissance castles, monasteries and convents, royal palaces, and world-class museums. Walking through Lisbon’s medieval streets, [students] will immerse ourselves in the musical, culinary, literary, and artistic traditions of this fascinating country.”
Students on this program live in neighboring men’s and women’s apartments along the coast. They have access to the many historical sites within Lisbon as well as the beach and other nearby cities. Students have the opportunity to travel around the country during weekend excursions as a group.
The group that is currently abroad has visited cities in Northern Portugal like Porto, Alcobaça and Braga, where students say everything from the architecture to the culture is different from what they’ve experienced in Lisbon.
Southeast of Lisbon, close to the Spanish border, students visited Monsaraz and Évora. In these cities, villages with castles appear to have been perfectly saved from 700 years ago.
Even with just a 45-minute train ride, students find themselves transported to the resort town of Cas Cais for a beach day.
Students across all majors are welcome to attend the study abroad, but fluency in Portuguese is required. In this particular group of students currently in Portugal, there was a married couple as well as a student from the University of Utah.
International relations and Portuguese double major Kendall Smith visited the Lisbon airport during a layover on the way to her mission in Cape Verde, and she knew she wanted to return to Portugal someday. She knew she wanted to be a part of the study abroad experience as soon as she learned about it.
“Portugal is a perfect balance of old and new,” Smith said. “You walk down the street and you’ll see a historical building or a chapel and then the next building is super modern. It’s a nice balance.”
The contrast of Portugal’s history and modern day life is immediately evident upon arriving in the country. High end stores neighbor small mom and pop stores. Heavily trafficked streets surround monuments from the Middle Ages. Antiquated cathedrals tower against the backdrop of cruise ships on the Tagus river.
History and Portuguese double major Sam Allen knew he wanted to be a part of this study abroad program because he could focus on both of his majors. He agrees with Smith regarding the history and the architecture of Lisbon, which makes the city’s culture unique.
“Lisbon did a good job of keeping the heritage of the city alive,” Allen said. “You feel like you’re living in the past sometimes when you’re here.”
The Portugal experience consists of students attending classes in addition to exploring the city of Lisbon and other locations via walking tours. Students have been instructed to take note of their sensory experience of Portuguese culture, focusing on the five senses, according Krause.
Students are required to create a project reflecting on Portuguese culture and their experiences interacting with it. Some students may keep a travel journal or write a reflection paper. But visual art student Carrie Jube is creating a photo essay with photos she’s taken across Portugal.
Jube said her photography acts as a sketchbook that she uses to inspire her other works of art. She takes photos everywhere the group goes, and she will categorize them based on certain themes to create her photo essay.
“(The project) is a less superficial view of the culture,” Jube said. “It’s interesting to go a little deeper and pinpoint certain aspects of it. I’ve learned just about the people in general and the way that they interact with each other and the importance that people place on historical artifacts or museums.”
Krause is the adviser over the group. It’s his first time overseeing a study abroad. However, he has experience supervising an international internship program for five years in São Paulo, Brazil.
Krause understands that an experience like this involves a lot of time, money, and effort on the part of college students. But he believes “when there is a will, there’s a way.”
“I would say about half of our students received enough funding to pay for 30 to 50 percent of the program costs,” Krause said. “In recruiting, I encouraged students to apply to the program and to realistically budget how much it would cost. Honestly, once they get to the country, they don’t spend much more than they would living in Provo. The big costs are the flight and the program costs. Everything else is rather affordable.”
Jube adds this one-of-a-kind opportunity in Portugal supports President Kevin J Worthen’s experiential learning project for BYU students to learn beyond the classroom. In exploring a new city, students are learning about culture, people and themselves.
“We all want to practice our Portuguese and we’re learning new things in a way that we wouldn’t be able to at BYU,” Jube said. “I think it’s definitely worth it.”
BYU Student Reconnects with Family on Spain Study Abroad
By Mckayla Robinson and Isabella Vaughn
The BYU Spain Spring study abroad offers many opportunities to learn about the culture and history of Spain and learn Spanish in a more realistic and lifelike setting. However, for one BYU student this study abroad lent him the opportunity to do so much more than that- reconnect with long-lost family members and a heritage he had never fully experienced.
Cristian Torres was that student. He grew up in Ruskin, Florida with a Mexican-American mother and a Spanish father. While his dad grew up in Spain and didn’t move to the United States or even learn English until after his LDS mission, Cris noted that he was more primarily exposed to Mexican culture, due to his mother’s heritage.
“My mom is Mexican-American, so that’s the culture I grew up in- Mexican music, Mexican traditions, Mexican food. So I didn’t know… well, I knew I was Spaniard but I didn’t feel the Spaniard in me until I started taking classes with Dr. Stallings and being here (in Spain),” Torres said.
Dr. Greg Stalling is a professor at BYU and one of the program directors for the Spain study abroad. Cris noted that he took a history and literature class from Dr. Stallings in which he “just start feeling the beauty of the humanities.” These classes also prompted him to come on the Spain study abroad.
“My first motivation was seeing the things he taught us about,” Torres said.
After deciding to come on the study abroad trip, Torres recognized the opportunity to see some of his paternal family members whom he hadn’t met or seen since he was four years old.
One weekend in May, Torres took a train from Madrid to Huelva, where his father’s father and siblings live. Torres said he didn’t even know what his aunt would look like when she picked him up from the train station. He just heard people yelling his name and then was soon smothered in warm abraises and cheek kisses.
The only time he had seen this family before was when he was four years old, so he doesn’t remember it at all. This felt like the first time meeting them all, but yet he felt comfortable with them.
“Because they knew we were related, it was like an instant connection with them,” Torres said.
Torres arrived at a family member’s apartment around 2 p.m. and the whole family was there. They immediately asked him if he wanted something to eat and started whipping out a plethora of food. Torres said this reminded him of his dad, who always offers up food to eat.
“I realized that’s where my dad gets that from, because anytime I’m with my dad he’s always like, ‘Eat more, eat more’,” Torres said.
Torres’ family is of gypsy heritage and still fully embraces some of the traditions, including the custom of flamenco dancing.
“One thing that ties them to their past is their dance,” Torres said.
On the first night of Torres’ stay they pushed the furniture apart and danced in their living room. They played modern music, but still danced and sang with flamenco influence.
“You can tell that music is the center of their [culture]... It comes from their soul, I guess,” Torres said.
After returning home from this visit with his family Torres had an assignment to watch a Spanish film that included Spanish guitar music. While watching, he had the thought, “This is me. This is my heritage.”
Torres noted this was the first time he truly felt that he could genuinely claim a part of his Spanish heritage.
Once he returns from his study abroad trip in Spain, Torres plans to continue learning more about his Spanish heritage. He says he even has a reading list he wants to get started on once he gets home.