Finding my religion in Madrid

Finding my religion in Madrid

Hola! My name is Ariel Hylton and I recently graduated in the Class of 2020 at Syracuse University. I majored in Communication Sciences and Disorders and Spanish and studied abroad in Madrid in the Fall of 2018. I loved every second of abroad! I really wanted to be immersed in the culture and practice speaking and communicating with others in Spanish. I chose Spanish Identities for my seminar and loved exploring Northern Spain and a couple cities in Portugal and France. This seminar was carried out solely in Spanish and I gained so much from it. I also traveled to so many different countries. Being able to learn from locals and their cultures was incredible. But I was still looking for more during my abroad experience.

As a Jewish woman, I was worried about going abroad. I was so used to celebrating the High Holidays with my family, friends and peers in a place I’m very comfortable going to and wasn’t sure if I’d ever find a similar community. However, I discovered KAHAL, an organization providing Jewish students with various Jewish experiences throughout the world.

Being invited into a new community may be scary and worrisome at first, but attending services for various Jewish holidays was the best decision I ever made. I attended services at a local synagogue in Madrid for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah. I met those who were also Jewish students studying abroad in Madrid, locals and individuals passionate about Judaism. In addition, the services were led in English and Spanish. Because I was fluent in Spanish, I was able to communicate with the other congregants and learn from them.

A local family also invited me into their home for a Hanukkah dinner. This was an experience and evening I will never forget. The family provided me with a delightful meal and included me in their own service. I truly felt at home. I remember going back to my host mom’s apartment and telling her how much I enjoyed spending the evening with that family. My parents were also thrilled to hear that I connected with other Jews.

I also loved learning more about what it’s like to practice Judaism in another country, especially in Spain. Toledo, a small city just outside of Madrid, is historically known for their Jewish community. I was able to visit Toledo during my time abroad, see various synagogues and discover how the Jewish people in this city practice Judaism.

My host mom in Madrid was always so willing to talk to me about being Jewish in Madrid and Spain in general. During the days when I left to go to High Holiday services, my host mom showed interest in my religious experiences the moment I walked through the door. I was able to teach her about my religion and she then shared a little about her own. Even though my own parents weren’t there to talk and spend time with me, my host mom always made me feel important as I celebrated these holidays in Madrid.

KAHAL and the experiences this organization provided me with truly enhanced my experience studying abroad in another country and city. I recommend KAHAL to any Jewish student planning on studying abroad. It really made me feel at home even when I was miles and plane rides away from my family and friends in the United States. Whether you’re traveling to Madrid, Paris, Prague, Shanghai or Sydney, KAHAL will connect you to immersive experiences in your local community! Check out KAHAL’s website for more information: https://kahalabroad.org

 

Ariel Hylton ’20

Syracuse Madrid

Adventures in Strasbourg

Eva KBonjour! My name is Eva Kamman and I’m a junior here at Syracuse studying environmental engineering. I studied abroad in the fall of 2018 at the Syracuse Center in Strasbourg, France. I chose this program for two main reasons. The first is that my family is French so being able to live there made me feel much closer to those relatives. In fact, in a weird way, it kind of felt like going home. The second was that I was able to take classes both at the Syracuse Center and at l’Institut national des sciences appliquées de Strasbourg (one of the premier engineering schools in France). Taking classes at INSA allowed me to regularly be in the same building as French engineering students and occasionally work with them. In one class, we had a few lectures where each SU undergraduate was partnered with an INSA graduate student to solve problem sets. While I was abroad, I took statics, electrical engineering fundamentals, calculus III, French IV, and I had an internship for credit.

When I went abroad, I definitely didn’t expect to hold an internship. However, the SU Center has a fantastic program that places interested students into positions around Strasbourg and I felt it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I was matched with a research professor at INSA and worked with him for a few hours each week in his student office where I was able to collaborate with his other student researchers. My work was focused on standardized precipitation evapotranspiration indexes and developing a method for calculating potential evapotranspiration in different climatic regions around the world. Being able to work with my advisor in a completely different setting than what I am used to was beneficial to both my academic and professional growth. Eva K

Though I’ve talked a lot about my academic experience so far, I am a strong believer that you shouldn’t go abroad just for the academics. Europe’s accessible transportation took me all around the continent – some notable places were Barcelona, Munich (for Oktoberfest!), and Greece. Each trip that I planned with my friends tested our organizational skills a little bit more. After all, I had always relied on my family to plan trips for me. Of course, there were the occasional flight cancellations or AirBnb mess ups, but we were always together and made the best out of whatever situation we were thrown in.

Studying abroad was probably the best decision I have made in my college career so far. I don’t think that I would be as successful either personally, academically, or professionally as I am today had I not taken advantage of the SUAbroad program. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me! Merci beaucoup et bientôt.

 

Eva Kamman ’21

Syracuse Strasbourg

Becoming a local in Stockholm

Rachael ChurchHi! My name is Rachael Church and I studied abroad through a Syracuse Abroad World Partner program called DIS in Stockholm, Sweden during the Fall of 2018.

Though choosing a program seemed daunting at first because there were so many options, I discovered and became interested in DIS Stockholm because of the unmatched courses offered there. I am a Biology major with minors in Public Health and in Environment & Society, so finding programs with more than one or two courses that would fill the requirements I still needed was a challenge. In Stockholm, however, I didn’t have to put my academic trajectory on hold to have an amazing experience. I took two classes that counted toward my major requirements: Translational Medicine (my Core Course) and Immunology. I also took Epidemiology and Medical Ethics as two courses to fill my Public Health elective requirement, and Scandinavian Crime Fiction to complete my liberal arts core requirement. The learning experience was incredibly hands-on and collaborative, with small class sizes and “study tours” around Stockholm to talk to experts in each field. Before studying abroad, I was considering pursuing Epidemiology after graduation, but was unsure if it was for me and wanted to learn more about the applications of Public Health and its intersection with my other interests. Studying with DIS allowed me to get an inside view of what my potential careers could be and make informed decisions to narrow down my prospective career options.

Kayaking

Living in Sweden is similar to the US in some ways, but the parts that stand out and make it unique are what make it such a fun experience. Everyone commutes (on the cleanest public transportation I have ever been on) or rides bikes to work instead of driving. The city parks are always full of joggers with their dogs and dads taking their babies for walks in strollers. The sun may set early (around 3pm in the middle of winter), but Swedes have adapted to this and know how to stay happy, healthy and active, and make the most of the sunlight that they have. The easiest way I found to immerse myself in the culture was to go to new cafes in the different parts of the city in the afternoons or during my breaks from class to do my homework and have fika (coffee and a dessert). I would also stop by one of the many museums with friends or take a walk through a park. DIS is also really helpful when it comes to getting involved. Through the program, I signed up for a kickboxing class which I took once per week with other Swedish and international university students. I also joined a yoga studio, which was easy for me to do because though it was taught in Swedish, the vast majority of Swedes also speak English, so I could get personalized feedback when I needed it. Speaking simple Swedish phrases is also pretty easy to pick up once you set your mind to it, and you can take a Swedish Language course at DIS as one of your classes too. Another way I got involved and immersed was by joining DIS’s Outdoor Adventure Learning Community, for which a group of 7 DIS students (who all lived on the same floor of a student apartment building outside the city) would explore Stockholm every Tuesday evening. Throughout the course of the semester, we went on walks, took ferry rides, went bike riding, rock climbing, swimming, kayaking and ice skating, all of which were incredible experiences that I might not have had the opportunity to do otherwise. Since I lived in an apartment with other DIS students, I did not get the experience of living with a host family, although that is also an option. Since I still wanted to get the experience of being part of a Swedish family, I participated in DIS’s Visiting Host Family program, where I was assigned to a family that I met up with once every couple of weeks for dinner. I also made friends with other students who did stay with host families, and we would go visit them every once and a while as well. If you are willing to put yourself out there, DIS gives you endless opportunities to immerse yourself in the Swedish culture.

DIS group

Of course, one of the biggest reasons people want to study abroad is to travel. Through my Core Course at DIS, I had the opportunity to take a trip to London for a week for a long study tour. I also traveled to lots of cities within Europe with the friends I made through DIS including Copenhagen, Bergen, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Zurich, Florence, and Venice on weekend trips and breaks throughout the semester. Though Stockholm is more distanced from the rest of Europe and it’s not possible to just take a train everywhere, it is still more than feasible to travel and get the full European experience.

Studying abroad in Stockholm increased my sense of confidence in myself, taught me how to adjust new and unfamiliar situations, and introduced me to some of my lifelong friends. I was drawn to DIS through the offered coursework, but applied for the opportunity to study in a unique city without a ton of tourist traffic and with students from all over the US to better my ability to meet adventurous people. Though my time abroad has been over for a while now, I know I’m not done travelling and I am so grateful for the experiences I gained in Stockholm because they gave me the confidence I need to pursue other opportunities and live abroad in the future.

 

Rachael Church ’20

DIS Stockholm, Fall 2018