Students searching for adventures study abroad

Monday, June 8, 1998

Students searching for adventures study abroad

PEOPLE: Education transcends what they can learn from books

By Meghan Ward

Daily Bruin Contributor

Run with the bulls in Pamplona, sleep in the fountains of Rome,
and study semiotics with Umberto Eco. These are the fruits of a
year spent studying abroad in Italy, where Matt Reischling, a
fourth-year communications and Italian student, spent his junior
year.

Reischling, one of the 300 students who take advantage of the UC
Education Abroad Program each year, snoozed through his Spanish
equivalence test freshman year. When Reischling needed to fulfill
his language requirement, he decided to take something more
romantic and enrolled in Italian 1.

With just three quarters of Italian, Reischling set off for
Siena, where he spent the summer studying Italian from 9 to 1 each
day. At the end of the summer, he moved north to Bologna where his
newly acquired language skills came in handy while searching for a
place to live. "In Siena we didn’t have to lift a finger, but when
we got to our cities it was put up or shut up. We pretty much had
to fend for ourselves," Reischling explains.

"This is where you are drop-kicked into the world. Our students
come back with a much greater sense of themselves and the world,"
says Jessica van der Valk, director of EAP.

Reischling found an apartment with three Italian men through an
announcement posted on the street.

He took classes in Dante, Italian film and semiotics at the
University of Bologna. The class in semiotics was taught by Umberto
Eco, author of "The Name of the Rose" and "Foucault’s
Pendulum."

"He treated us like kings. We were his favorite Californian
students," Reischling says.

Though Reischling did not run into any particular problems, he
did manage to put himself into precarious situations on more than
one occasion. "I slept in an empty fountain outside of the train
station in Rome because the hostel was full," Reischling admits. He
also ran with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain and hiked up a glacier
in Switzerland during school vacations.

Reischling found Italian bureaucracy to be the most frustrating
part of his year studying abroad. "It translates into getting
Christmas cards in springtime and getting to the bank at 11:30 and
waiting in line until 12:30 when they close for siesta until 3:30,"
Reischling recalls.

Having seen "Il Postino" twice before departing for Italy,
Reischling was determined to find the little house where the
postman brought letters to Pablo Neruda. With two other students,
Reischling ventured out to the Aeolean Islands where he entered a
beautiful, lush green landscape complete with waterfalls.

Spotting a "private property" sign, Reischling stumbled upon the
sought- after house. He sat down on the porch and wrote in his
journal, then he buried the journal entry under a rock near the
door. Someday he plans to go back to southern Italy and read what
it was like to be carefree and 20 and in love with life.

Brett Weil – Granada, Spain

Weil, a fourth-year English student, prepared himself for his
year abroad by taking a post-WWII American History class at UCLA.
"People over there are so much more informed about history and
current events than we are," Weil explains. In his 10-and-a-half
months abroad, Weil was able to engage in debates about Marxism,
capitalism and socialism.

Having completed Spanish 6 at UCLA, Weil decided to begin his
year abroad with a month in the Instructional Language Program. A
cultural immersion program, ILP offered instruction in Spanish
language, culture and history.

At the University of Granada, Weil enrolled in political
science, art history, European history and Spanish literature
classes.

"In Madrid the focus is economics and politics and in Barcelona
they speak Catalan. I chose the University of Granada by default,
but it was fabulous," Weil admits. EAP students can travel to 33
different countries, choosing from over 100 different
institutions.

Weil resided with three Spanish men, two of whom were English
majors and enjoyed discussing Joyce and Hemingway with their
American roommate. Weil’s worst situation during his trip abroad
was when his roommate’s mother showed up one day.

"Suddenly the door started opening and there was a woman
standing in the dark wearing a fur coat with long blond hair. I was
terrified," Weil relates. Joaquin’s mother was unemployed and had
come to Granada to live with her son while she searched for work.
Weil tells about the day he bought a $5 jar of mustard: "It’s a
specialty there. One day I came back from the gym and she had
thrown it in the garbage. She thought it smelled bad."

Weil’s most memorable event abroad was the night "The
Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" premiered in Granada. Weil created a
fake press pass complete with photo and signed "Dorothy Chandler"
on his computer. He "elbowed his way past screaming pre-pubescent
girls into the hotel" where he told the press corps he was a
photographer for the L.A. Times. Weil entered the premiere via the
red carpet amidst Granada’s high society and celebrities.

Soriya Kelly – Grenoble, France

Kelly, a fourth-year communications studies and French student,
spent her year abroad at the University of Grenoble. Kelly moved in
with a middle-aged French woman who rented out rooms in her house
to students, under the impression that the woman would rarely be at
home. That proved not to be the case. When she tried to move out,
the woman held her luggage hostage, insisting that she had not paid
the rent. Kelly had forgotten to ask for a receipt, so she had no
proof that she had paid the first month’s rent in full.

Eventually, the EAP staff on site sorted out the dilemma and
Kelly moved into an apartment with one American woman and two men,
one from France and one from Luxembourg in an apartment in the
center of town.

Once Kelly was living independently with friends, she had a
wonderful time.

Because she did not have class on Fridays, she was able to spend
her weekends traveling around France. During longer vacations, she
ventured past the border to other European countries. "I went to
Venice for Carnival and all the hotels were booked. But we met an
Italian guy on the train on the way there and he invited us to stay
at his parents’ house outside of Venice. When we got there, his
mother fixed us the most amazing meal – with five courses," Kelly
recounts.

Michael Dillingham – Mexico City, Mexico

Michael Dillingham, a fourth-year graphic design student, chose
to spend a year abroad because he wanted to get into a routine. "I
had done the two month traveling thing," Dillingham explains. He
chose Mexico because he was familiar with the language and the
country. Having completed Spanish 25 his first quarter at UCLA,
Dillingham managed to comprehend about 80 percent of his lectures
at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

But it didn’t always work. "I got credit for one design class
that I got a D in because there was a misunderstanding about an
assignment," he says. Through the EAP program, students remain
enrolled in UCLA while studying at other universities.

"We guarantee that everything shows up on their transcripts.
It’s not a year to party," emphasizes van der Valk, director of
EAP.

Though he tried to take classes in his major, Dillingham found
that graphic design in Mexico focuses on manual design while
graphic design in the United States is more computer-oriented.

Dillingham lived in an apartment with Mexican students and spent
most of his free time with Mexicans. "A lot of people go to visit
and they hang out with Americans and have a good time, but they’re
always treated like foreigners," Dillingham explains.

Though going abroad delayed Dillingham’s graduation, he has no
regrets.

"I can’t blame anybody – I have a weird major. I don’t think
anyone from the whole school of art ever studied abroad,"
Dillingham says. After graduation, he plans to return to Mexico to
attend the wedding of a friend.

Chris Good – Canterbury, England

Chris Good, a fourth-year English and Political Science student
with a business administration minor, spent a year at the
University of Kent at Canterbury. Good started off his stay living
in the dorms which, according to Good, were built by the architect
famous for designing prisons in England.

"The dorm was built like a prison – riot-proof," Good says. The
one advantage to dorm life, however, was that there was a pub in
each building.

"The dorms were an eating hall, rooms, class rooms and a pub. I
lived under a pub," Good relates.

After two weeks of dorm life, Good moved into a six-person suite
with five women. Living in a house with one Italian, one Turk, one
Brit and two American females, Good says he got blamed for
everything that went wrong.

"The girls didn’t get along, so they would come in my room and
bitch about each other," Good says.

Good found the British schooling system to be particularly
conducive to extensive traveling. "You write a couple papers and
you take an exam at the end. In England, the final exam is 90
percent of your grade," Good says.

Though for many people, the pressure of knowing one exam will
determine your grade for the year is too much, Good took advantage
of the system to venture around Europe on Eurail.

"You take 10 weeks of classes, then you get a month off for
Christmas, then you take another 10 weeks of the same classes, then
you get another month off before finals," Good explains. When he
felt like doing research on art at the Louvre, he would go
Paris.