This is me and 2 of my best friends I made in my year abroad. Meeting them was the best gift that my Granada experience gave me (this was taken at our final program dinner – Alhambra ft. in the back)
NAME: Julieta Mendiola
MAJOR: Child and Adolescent Development
PROGRAM: CSU IP- Granada Spain – Academic year 2024-2025
EMAIL: julieta.mendiola@sjsu.edu
BIO:
Hi my name is Julieta Mendiola and am majoring in child development, pursuing a minor in psychology, as well as a minor in deaf studies. I come from a Latino family (both parents are from Mexico and raised me and my 2 siblings with their Mexican culture, traditions, and heritage). I am bilingual in English and Spanish and proficient in American Sign Language. I did competitive artistic gymnastics for 19 years of my life and am now 23 and would say that it has shaped me into the person I am today. I was on the D1 gymnastics team here at SJSU for my first 3 years of college and went through a lot of growth and challenges in that year. I had visited Europe before with my family, but really was left with an itch to continue exploring (and this time on my own). I really wanted to be in a new environment and have the opportunity to meet people from around the world and just widen my perspective on a lot of different things. I had also never been fully alone and wanted to experience that also was really curious on exploring how child development differs between location, environment, and cultures and learned a lot from all the different cultures and groups of people I got to meet, and as well as from my 2 internships I got to do while studying in Granada. I was nervous to commit to the decision of studying abroad in Spain because it was a big change, full of a lot of unknown factors, and also really far away from home/family, and I was actively deciding to leave my current life here in California (when I felt like everything in most aspects of my life at home was very aligned and going well and also could foresee some planned upcoming great opportunities for me that I would not get to pursue in the academic year 2024- 2025 if I did decide to study abroad). But, making the decision to study abroad has been one of/if not the best decision of my life so far.
GOALS: What were your goals for studying abroad?
I wanted to be in a new environment away from all my past commitments, social groups, and comfort and learn to live with myself and get to know myself as well as learn to put me and my needs first and learn what that feels like. Another goal was to open and widen my perspective through meeting people from around the world and immersing myself in a new culture as well as traveling to explore other countries. I also wanted to do school in another country as well as learn about Spanish history and culture (this was interesting to me since I am Mexican and was going to an environment/country that was the one that conquered Mexico many years ago). I also wanted to try a lot of new things as much as possible.
PERSONAL GROWTH: What was the biggest impact that your study abroad experience had on you?
ACADEMICS: How would you describe your academic experience abroad? While abroad, I took a mixture of courses. I took some upper division GE’s that I needed for graduation that really interested me. I did an internship course I needed for service hours (I loved it so much that I ended up doing another one in the spring semester). One was being a English language TA for a variety of ages in a religious, private elementary school in Granada (that was almost completely homogenous with Spanish students). The second semester, I did a volunteering internship in an after school program in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Granada and had such a 180 flip experience with the population of students I had. I took cool courses like Flamenco culture, Spanish Sign language, Spanish music, writing texts in Spanish,
CAREER: What skills did you learn / sharpen during your study abroad experience? I feel like my street smarts improved, my social skills, my self-care capabilities, I feel like I got braver to try new things, I also feel like my traveling skills improved so much and my instincts in dangerous situations improved.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: How has your immersion impacted your perspectives on the world?
One of my biggest takeaways was seeing how many versions of “normal” exist in the world and that I really can never ever judge anyone because of the immense diversity of perspectives, cultures, environments, thought processes that just exist. It’s increased my empathy, my ability to have an open-mind as well as being patient and willing to hear many different perspectives. Also the idea that assumptions tend to be harmful and wrong most of the time. The best thing we can do is try new things with an open-mind because you just never know what something really is like until you experience it and then get to form your own opinion. It also widened my perspective on the idea of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world countries and how different people can be living and also maybe never get the opportunity to leave the country they’re in (and seeing how their perspective on the world looks like without having left their own country is really interesting.) There is just so much to explore and I can’t really describe it best in words but just really engrained the idea of “never judge a book by it’s cover” and I believe that this experience is so rewarding and I wish it could be something everyone could experience once in their life. It made me reflect on my life a lot and what felt like a big deal and seeing what I used to feel like really defined me (like clubs I was a part of, or certain friend groups I was with ) and how certain parts of my life felt so big…but then after being abroad it just widened my perspective on so many levels.
FUTURE: How has study abroad prepared you for your future? I feel like now moving somewhere new or trying something new, doesn’t seem as scary and excites me more with the possibilities that may come from it. It also had made me reevaluate future goals that I have and where I want to go searching/pursuing them. I learned so much from my classes there as well as from all my interactions there too.
TIPS: What advice would you give to future Global Spartans? It’s going to seem new, scary, and unknown but you will surprise yourself with your ability to adapt and make the best out of every situation. Going there and actually living it yourself gives you a new perspective that is hard to put into words but will change the way you look at everything.