Incredible year in an incredible country Past Review
By A student (Anthropology, Middlebury College) - abroad from 03/02/2015 to 12/14/2015 with
IFSA: Lima - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
It was the best year. I grew a ton personally and am more independent and confident. I expanded my worldview and met so many people. It was amazing.
Personal Information
| How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? | 1 month - 6 months |
Review Your Program
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* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
The rigor was below Middlebury's level for some classes, or with more outside-of-class work. Classes were less organized and the university had fewer resources in general, but I learned how to supplement and had more self-directed learning. |
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* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
Sometimes organization was an issue but the directors are great people and I learned a lot from them. |
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* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
My host family made my year amazing. Lovely people who ate dinner with me every night, along with taking me to special events and generally being there for me. Rules were tolerant, and the house was amazing in an ideal location. |
| * Food: |
Peruvian food might be the best in the world; it's cheap, fresh, and diverse. |
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* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
It took me a bit to learn a new set of social norms and really understand the diverse nature of Peruvian culture. By now I understand and even fit in to a certain extent but I am obviously a foreigner and in public sometimes felt as though my gringa label was a burden. |
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* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
I didn't have any major health issues. We were taught how to prevent stomach sickness + what to do in case of problems. |
| * Safety: |
Lima is an enormous city so of course you have to take certain precautions. Nothing ever happened to me, but I made sure to not leave the house with more than I needed and to avoid dangerous areas. Many of my friends were robbed, however, in a variety of circumstances. If you are smart about how you act and where you go you can minimize dangers. |
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
Yes
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Finances
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* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
I saved so much money living in Lima. I could get by on $2/ weekday if I really wanted to save up, and travel was pretty cheap too. |
| Not including program expenses, about how much money did you spend on food and other expenses each week? | $40 |
| Do you have any general money-saving tips for future study abroad participants? | Save your money for the weekends, shop at the market, make your own lunch. |
Language
| * Did your program have a foreign language component? | Yes |
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How much did the program encourage you to use the language?
0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language |
Everything the program did was in Spanish. |
| How would you rate your language skills at the beginning of the program? | Advanced |
| How would you rate your language skills at the end of the program? | Fluent |
| What was the highest level language course you had completed prior to departure? | 350 |
| How many hours per day did you use the language? | |
| Do you have any tips/advice on the best ways to practice the language for future study abroad participants? | Live with a family, make Peruvian friends, just go out and talk to people. |
Other Program Information
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* Where did you live?
Select all that apply |
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* Who did you live with?
Select all that apply |
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* Who did you take classes with?
Select all that apply |
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| About how many local friends did you make that you will likely keep in touch with? |
A Look Back
| * What did you like most about the program? |
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| * What could be improved? |
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| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | The hardest parts are those that will be most worth it in the end |
Reasons For Studying Abroad
| To help future students find programs attended by like-minded individuals, please choose the profile that most closely represents you. |
The Academic or LinguistYou went abroad with specific academic goals in mind; the program credentials and rigor of your coursework abroad were very important to you. You had a great time abroad, but never lost sight of your studies and (if applicable) were diligent with your foreign language study. Good for you! |
Individual Course Reviews
| Course Name/Rating: |
Etnografía Amazónica |
| Course Department: | Anthropology |
| Instructor: | Enrique Herrera and Erik Pozo |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | This was a lecture-based class with four essays as our means of evaluation. There were two professors plus guests which made for a disjointed feel. One left to do research in the Amazon, leaving the class to the other professor and not giving feedback on our essays til the end of the semester. There was minimal discussion in the class; it was mostly lectures that were sometimes well prepared, sometimes less so. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | I haven't transferred credit yet. |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Arqueologia Andina 4 |
| Course Department: | Archaeology |
| Instructor: | Krzysztof Makowski |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | An incredibly challenging course: 2 hours of archaeological information thrown at us in the form of well-planned and practiced lectures with a larger point tying everything together. This course intimidated me at first but I figured out how to spend enough time reading our 30 page bibliography and reviewing the information from class to be able to do well on the challenging exams (one was a 30 minute oral exam). |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | -- |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Arqueologia Comparada 2 |
| Course Department: | Archaeology |
| Instructor: | Rafael Vega-Centeno |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | A wonderful course that compared different chiefdom societies from around the world to give us context of how Andean archaeology is different. The lectures were very good, with Power Point images to help visualization. The professor is a well-renowned archaeologist and incredibly intelligent but also was great at translating his knowledge into explanations that made sense for us new archaeology students. We had 4 exams, plus the midterm and final, but they were fair and involved a moderate amount of studying. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | -- |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Realidad Social Peruana |
| Course Department: | Anthropology |
| Instructor: | Juan Carlos Callirgos |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | This was an amazing course that explained all of what we were experiencing in Lima's daily life in a larger context; we learned about historical and modern processes in an interesting way. The professor has fieldwork experience in the Andes and the rainforest so used lots of personal examples to explain, along with Power Points and videos. We visited photo exhibits and had volunteer work tied to the class. Assessment through a final paper and exams. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | -- |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Reducción Avanzada de Castellano |
| Course Department: | Spanish |
| Instructor: | Rossana Diaz |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | This course was required by the program but overlapped a bit with Realidad Social Peruana. It was more of a literature course, with short stories from Peruvian authors that were interesting. However, the assessment was short papers that were graded mostly on grammar, which I did not think was the focus of the class. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | -- |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Arqueologia Andina 1 |
| Course Department: | Anthropology |
| Instructor: | Peter Kaulicke |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | This class was a good introduction to the archaeology of Peru and gave me a great background for understanding the trajectory of the country. However, the professor would jump all over the place and assumed we should know things that we had no background in, asking questions and getting upset when we couldn't respond. Assessment was two papers and two exams, which were fair. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | -- |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Laboratorio de Arqueologia 2 |
| Course Department: | Archaeology |
| Instructor: | Rafael Vega-Centeno |
| Instruction Language: | Spanish |
| Comments: | In this course we learned about ceramics analysis for archaeology, which was quite interesting. We had a lecture once a week along with a lab in which we each had our own ceramics sample that we analyzed throughout the semester, culminating in a presentation to the class of our sample. The lecture class had exams. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: | -- |
