Beauty is found in differences. Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

My student teaching experience in Denver was phenomenal! It was really helpful to be living with several other education majors because we were able to debrief about our days on a regular basis. As the program was new it was a little stressful and confusing making sure that my cooperating teachers were filling out the correct paper work.

On-site administration of your program

The on-site administrator knew a ton about the city and was really good at helping us get acquainted with it. There was a lack of communication many times though about internship placements that were frustrating.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

The house that we lived in was small for the number of us that were there, but there was a spacious living room, dining room and kitchen that gave us more space to spend time in either working or relaxing. The placement of the house was amazing as we were within walking distance of downtown. The neighborhood that we were in was also a place where I felt safe.

We got to create a grocery list each week and then we made our own meals. It was great because we were always able to get food that we actually wanted!

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

We rode the buses everywhere which really helped us fit in with the city life. This helped us to learn the city really well to. About half way though my time in Denver I was able to give other people direction on how to get places and which buses they needed to take. When I could do this I felt like a local :)

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I did not have any health issues so I don't really know how it would be. One of my roommates needed to go to a doctor and the co-director of our program drove her there which was very helpful.

Being safe is all about being smart. Don't walk down streets at night by yourself. Take a taxi home if it's past midnight, earlier if you are by yourself. It is typically fine to talk to strangers, even homeless people or people who are trying to sell you drugs, just make sure that you are in a place with lots of people around and it's during the day. Overall I can only think of two or three times when I didn't feel safe. When that happened I removed myself from the situation as soon as possible.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

The only reason that it was so easy is that we still paid Northwestern for room and board, so we had paid a lot upfront for all of our food as well as our housing. One thing that was excelent about this program is that each month we got a visa gift card to use for civic engagement activities. It was a part of having us engage in the city. If I had not been given this civic engagement money I would have engaged in a lot less activities around the city as well as spent a lot more of my personal money.

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• How we had to engage in a "civic engagement" each week where we did something new in the city.
• That there were other students from Northwestern there.
• The closing ceremony where encouraging words are said to you and you are prayed over before you leave the city to return home.

• I think that there needs to be some delegation to others from the director so that the program can function more smoothly.
• The classes we were required to take while there began to seem very repetitive.
• When we had a maintenance problem we had to let one person know who would then let another person know who would then let another person know. It would have been helpful to have the direct number for the maintenance man rather than jumping though so many hoops.

The Academic or Linguist