Summary:
Since I was a little girl I knew I wanted to study abroad; after growing up watching my dad travel around the world for work I knew I wanted to not just see the world but also to study somewhere during university. My problem was always deciding on a country to go to. Luckily after hours of pouring through all the programs UC offered I landed upon USAC where I immediately fell in love with a university in Cork, UCC. On my mom's side my heritage is Irish and I have family friends who still live in Dublin so that was an added bonus because I would be able to learn more about my ancestry while studying for the semester! Planning to study abroad took so much time and effort but it was definitely worth it now that I look back on my experience. With filling out paperwork and focusing on my fall semester classes, time dwindled until it was finally January 11th when I could board my plan to Cork!! Christmas break was filled with packing and getting my last minute stuff sent off to USAC. I was so excited by the idea of going by myself to a new continent that the only time I was sad was when I had to say goodbye to my family at the airport.
My first two full days were filled with orientation; I had no time to register that I was actually in Ireland because I was so busy meeting new people, figuring out classes, and jet lag. School started the following week and wow... are classes different in Europe! For the first time in my life, I was taking classes where I wasn't required to have a textbook but instead the professors gave us reading lists where we could choose which books we wanted to read for the semester. It might have been easy to slack off but since final exams are worth 80% or more of final grades at UCC it was necessary to keep up with reading even though there was absolutely no daily homework. Furthermore, the grading scale is WAY different; a 70% in Ireland is considered 1st Class Honors but coming from America I almost panicked when I received my first midterm grade back but my Irish professor explained the conversion for me so I no longer needed to worry.
Since I went over with USAC, I went on two field trips with them which allowed me to see a unique perspective on common Irish tourist routes. The rest of my weekends were filled with coming home for my brother's wedding or visiting new countries like Italy and France. In Europe, students get a month long Easter Recess; classes end before the break and after you come back from the break final exams begin. I traveled to 10 countries during my break and studied like crazy on my long train rides throughout continental Europe. It was such a unique experience to see Europe by train instead of flying everywhere. Once I returned to Ireland, I had 4 exams the first week and my last exam was the very last day of exams. Exams are vastly different compared to final exams at UC. At UCC, as I mentioned previously my exams were worth at least 80% of my grade and they consisted of answering 2 out of 8 questions in a two hour time span. My hand cramped so badly by the time I finished my fourth exam of the week that I was grateful I had a week until my fifth one. Time flew by during my semester and suddenly my semester was done.. It was hard to say goodbye to all the incredible people I met during my time there but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I created a blog to keep up with all my travels in more detail which is under the Study Abroad Blog tab above on the right but here it is also linked if you're curious to see where my adventures took me: http://savannahgulick.weebly.com/study-abroad-blog and I also created a video for my reflection piece which shows my adventures in a video format instead: https://youtu.be/7MiQKzlyaqw
Documentation:
I love food; my family has kindly nicknamed me garbage disposal because I will eat practically anything and at least try everything once. Because of this I knew I wanted to create another recipe book focusing on traditional Irish foods similar to what I did for my Brazil trip. By talking to our Irish family friends, I tried to be as authentic as possible with the recipes and not just use recipes that are 'tourist' foods but rather actual dishes Irish people eat. I created the recipe book with publisher again so here is the link to that as well:
Since I was a little girl I knew I wanted to study abroad; after growing up watching my dad travel around the world for work I knew I wanted to not just see the world but also to study somewhere during university. My problem was always deciding on a country to go to. Luckily after hours of pouring through all the programs UC offered I landed upon USAC where I immediately fell in love with a university in Cork, UCC. On my mom's side my heritage is Irish and I have family friends who still live in Dublin so that was an added bonus because I would be able to learn more about my ancestry while studying for the semester! Planning to study abroad took so much time and effort but it was definitely worth it now that I look back on my experience. With filling out paperwork and focusing on my fall semester classes, time dwindled until it was finally January 11th when I could board my plan to Cork!! Christmas break was filled with packing and getting my last minute stuff sent off to USAC. I was so excited by the idea of going by myself to a new continent that the only time I was sad was when I had to say goodbye to my family at the airport.
My first two full days were filled with orientation; I had no time to register that I was actually in Ireland because I was so busy meeting new people, figuring out classes, and jet lag. School started the following week and wow... are classes different in Europe! For the first time in my life, I was taking classes where I wasn't required to have a textbook but instead the professors gave us reading lists where we could choose which books we wanted to read for the semester. It might have been easy to slack off but since final exams are worth 80% or more of final grades at UCC it was necessary to keep up with reading even though there was absolutely no daily homework. Furthermore, the grading scale is WAY different; a 70% in Ireland is considered 1st Class Honors but coming from America I almost panicked when I received my first midterm grade back but my Irish professor explained the conversion for me so I no longer needed to worry.
Since I went over with USAC, I went on two field trips with them which allowed me to see a unique perspective on common Irish tourist routes. The rest of my weekends were filled with coming home for my brother's wedding or visiting new countries like Italy and France. In Europe, students get a month long Easter Recess; classes end before the break and after you come back from the break final exams begin. I traveled to 10 countries during my break and studied like crazy on my long train rides throughout continental Europe. It was such a unique experience to see Europe by train instead of flying everywhere. Once I returned to Ireland, I had 4 exams the first week and my last exam was the very last day of exams. Exams are vastly different compared to final exams at UC. At UCC, as I mentioned previously my exams were worth at least 80% of my grade and they consisted of answering 2 out of 8 questions in a two hour time span. My hand cramped so badly by the time I finished my fourth exam of the week that I was grateful I had a week until my fifth one. Time flew by during my semester and suddenly my semester was done.. It was hard to say goodbye to all the incredible people I met during my time there but I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I created a blog to keep up with all my travels in more detail which is under the Study Abroad Blog tab above on the right but here it is also linked if you're curious to see where my adventures took me: http://savannahgulick.weebly.com/study-abroad-blog and I also created a video for my reflection piece which shows my adventures in a video format instead: https://youtu.be/7MiQKzlyaqw
Documentation:
I love food; my family has kindly nicknamed me garbage disposal because I will eat practically anything and at least try everything once. Because of this I knew I wanted to create another recipe book focusing on traditional Irish foods similar to what I did for my Brazil trip. By talking to our Irish family friends, I tried to be as authentic as possible with the recipes and not just use recipes that are 'tourist' foods but rather actual dishes Irish people eat. I created the recipe book with publisher again so here is the link to that as well: