University of Guadalajara Exchange Program Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

School in Guadalajara is very different from school in the US. Textbooks are less used. There is a lot of stress on group projects and presentations and less on tests. Being a government-run school which is free to attend, they can't provide all the luxuries that a more expensive school can (libraries, internet, recreational facilities). There are some similarities. The teachers still get up and lecture for the most part. This can be a bit frustrating because it's nearly impossible to understand 100% of a lecture in a second language (the classes are 2 hours long each). However, I honestly learned a lot in my classes and had more hands on experiences than I had anticipated. For example, for my ecology class we actually planted trees and cared for them, and even took a field trip to another town to help them clean up a polluted area. Also I felt like I was constantly learning because learning the language is a 24-hour job which never ends.

On-site administration of your program

Maclovia Medina Plascencia was always there for us to deal with housing changes, take us out to lunch when we needed a break and answer lots of questions.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

We lived for most of our time with a host family near CEPE (in Colonia Ladron de Guevarra). It was actually just one lady. We moved at one point to be closer to CUCS but did not like the host family there, so we moved back. The lady i lived with was a great host mom for a few reasons: she was a big talker which made us feel comfortable with her because we got to know her very well very quickly and were therefore listening to spanish all the time, she was very flexible and laid back and understanding, she was very loving and basically treated us as her own children, and she was an amazing cook. I think it's very important to live with someone who you feel comfortable with and its great if you have someone to talk to all the time in spanish. <br /><br /> Our housing was arranged originally through CEPE and then we later arranged thourgh Maclovia to continue living there although we were no longer attending CEPE. I always felt very safe in the neighborhood, but obviously I did not go walking outside alone at night or put myself in vulnerable situations. In Guadalajara you get around in cabs or take the bus, both of which were cheap and easy. The CEPE campus was walking distance from my house in Colonia Ladron de Guevarra and the CUCS campus was about a 30 minute bus ride away.I did not have to buy much to settle into my house. I bought a towel and we bought our own toilet paper. We also had to pay to have our laundry done at the laudromat. My host mom always treated me with love, generosity, and respect.

The food is one of the things I miss most about Mexico. Its cheap and delicious. I don't recommend eating at a lot of sketchy stands out in the street because you always have to question their cleanliness but try as many things as you can in clean, trustworthy places. The portions tend to be smaller in Meixo than in the US, but thats a good thing. I always felt like I ate the right amount of food there, instead of too much as is often the case in the US. The host families tend to be willing and able to accommodate dietary restrictions, althought I did not really have any. Our mom basically asked us what we wanted to eat once a week before she went to the market. She bought the things we liked and made different meals out of them every day. We ate a lot of chicken, fish, salsa, corn tortillas, beans, rice, steamed vegetables, and soup. Breakfast was usually eggs and ham and pineapple. Dinner was often quesadillas. There are tons of goos restaurants in Guadalajara also. A few favorites were Los Otates, Garibaldis, and Los Chilaquiles.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

Guadalajara has a great night life. There are lots of good bars and clubs to go to. But also they have a great zoo to visit, lots of beautiful parks to pass the day in, an organized bike ride through the city every wednesday night which hundreds of people attend, a recreational route through the city every sunday where they close down some streets so that the people can ride bikes, roller skate, run, or walk through the streets, movie theatres and malls just like the US, etc.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

I always felt very safe in Guadalajara and I usually felt very healthy. However you still have to be smart and take car of yourself. Don't walk alone at night. Don't go to the ATM alone at night. Don't set your purse down and leave it where you can't see it. The only crime I ever heard about being a problem was an occasional theft but in the year that I spent there I never had a single thing stolen, nor did my roommate. As far as health, I washed my hands often, got plenty of sleep and joined a gym. And I felt great. Sure there were occassional sicknesses, especially when you're doing rotations in the hospital. A girl in my program got the flu at one point, my roommate had Salmonella poisoning at one point, a friend came down with Dengue for a while. But Maclovia graciously picked us up and took us to the hospital when someone got sick. They treated us and we were fine.

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

I was able to spend almost a year in Guadalajara and I'm prettty fluent. It started off slowly but eventually became an exponential learning curve. I recommend you spend as much time as you can abroad if you really want to be able to speak the language. There's no substitute for 24-hour a day hearing it spoken and having to use it. I was lucky to come with a lot of years of classes under my belt so I knew grammatical structure pretty well. For me the most important thing was to take in as much vocabulary as possible in order to understand all the day-to-day conversation.

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• Host Family

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• Host Family
• Americans

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• Local Students