La Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires

I’ve been in Argentina long enough to run through my whole supply of clean underwear. In this time, I’ve formed some strange impressions. Buenos Aires is a city full of beautiful trees. No one picks up the caca de perros. And they really, really like their steak and beets.

My adjustment, mind you, is not average. Of the last six months, I’ve spent four living in Shanghai and one traveling Southeast Asia. My two weeks in the United States was more like a brief stop-over than adjustment period. So here I am, reintroducing myself to Western life in a South American city and trying to get the Chinese language out of my head.

Not that everything is so different here. In Shanghai and Buenos Aires, people drive like they have a death wish. I can buy fresh fruit on every other corner, though it was oranges in China and huge, juicy peaches here. And the man behind the counter of my local convenience store still finds my difficulty with local currency a source of mirth.

But like anything else, practice makes perfect. I find the more time I spend living out of a suitcase, the more comfortable I feel wherever I go. Last week I stopped at my neighborhood chino, a type of small, independent supermarket generally owned by an Asian family. She handed me my change, and to my surprise I blurted out “Xiexie.” She smiled and replied “muy bien.” In some strange, mixed up way, I felt perfectly at home.

Becca Mondshein is currently a student with NYU Experience Buenos Aires. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.

For some reason, I imagined a packed classroom with students chattering nervously about wanting to study in the United States. Maybe I just caught them on an off day, or it could be that there are so many test dates offered in Buenos Aires that there’s no need for packed rooms, even in a city of this size. What needs to be said about the exam is simple enough: it sucked and I’m glad it’s over. So now that the awful monkey on my back has finally jumped to a new branch, I can focus on other things. I’m looking to get into more writing, and just recently a co-worker asked me to help with English lessons. I’m actually surprised it took this long for someone to ask.

Though I really wasn’t keen on teaching again, I actually look forward to giving some lessons in my spare time, if for nothing else than to chat it up with a co-worker some more. These lessons would obviously be pro bono, which is volunteering in some form or another. So just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. But the sky is blue and it’s nearly summer. I’ll smile and short of a karate chop to the GRE prep book I used, this day couldn’t get much better.

From cultural barriers to enhanced research opportunities,  studying in another country can be quite a different experience. We’re interested in learning more about the benefits and challenges of getting a degree abroad – and we’d love it if you could take 20 minutes of your time to fill out this quick survey. The survey deadline is November 15.

Your participation is extremely valuable. The results will be used to create a series of articles for American students interested in pursuing a graduate degree abroad. If  this doesn’t sound like you but you know someone who would be a great fit, please pass the survey along.

Additionally, if you’re looking to pursue a graduate degree in the public good after Latin America, check out our Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center for help in getting started.