Come Abroad will involve the creation of a web community for both NUI Galway students going on exchange and for foreign students coming to NUI Galway. The website will act as a forum for students to ask questions, get advice and seek information on exchange studies opportunities.
Students: Joanna Marciniak, Kamila Polchowska
Staff: Prof. Bill Richardson
Project Update – 31 March 2014:
As a part of our EXPLORE Come Abroad program, we had the pleasure of attending a meeting with the Chilean Consul Me Cristian Oschilewski and the Mexican Ambassador Mr Carlos García de Alba at the respective Embassies in Dublin on Friday 21st of March. Both Embassies have had a long partnership with the Department of Spanish at NUIG and we were delighted to bring Second Year Latin American Studies and B. Comm. International students who will be spending the third year of their degree in South and/or Central America. First Year students of Latin American Studies accompanied us on the visit with the view of spending their year abroad in either Chile or Mexico. Both Mr Oschilewski and Ambassador García de Alba gave the students a very warm welcome and spoke extensively with Professor Bill Richardson and the students about the distinct relationship with Ireland and especially NUIG, as well as providing them with useful information before their trip.
Project Update – 31 January 2014:
- On Monday 3 February we will be holding our first event in the Skeff at 7pm. We chose the Skeff since it is big, easily accessible and we get finger foods for the night for free.
- We will be holding the Intercambio night (language exchange) every second week, but this will depend on demand.
- We will be organising within the next 5-6 weeks a trip to Dublin to the Mexican and Chilean embassy for Second Year Students.
- We are still working on the website, so we are hoping to get it done ASAP as well.
- We have plans to work with the International Students Society, Hispano Society and the Italian Society to look at organising an event or trip somewhere in Ireland, which would be paid for by students.
- Our main goal for now is the first event we are holding in the Skeff on Monday and progress on the website, so hopefully it can start running shortly.
- As the time moves on we might decide on having more events (all depends of the demand, etc)
- Joanna and Kamila have split the work, so Joanna will take care of the accountancy and keeping all the receipts, where Kamila will be in charge of project finances.
Project Update – 29 November 2013:
With an emphasis on the BA CONNECT with Latin American Studies degree, we would like to accommodate students who are going to spend their year abroad in South America, as we believe it is a much bigger challenge than spending your exchange period abroad in places participating in the Erasmus Programme.
Students would have access to academic programmes, accommodation and student services, programs and extracurricular activities hosted by the relevant universities, as well a contact list to relevant members of staff in each discipline. The most valuable aspect of our website would be the variety of services covered for both incoming and outgoing students. To do so, we are planning a variety of events throughout the second semester to encourage our students to make the most of the resources we provide them with to make sure they will have an unforgettable academic and personal experience in South America.
We would wish to promote the outcome of our project with all the International Students, and most importantly, with the outgoing Latin American Studies students in the present academic year 2013/2014. The events we are planning for the upcoming semester include the launch of our Come Abroad website, trip to relevant embassies in Dublin, nights for both international and Irish students in cooperation with the International Students Society, language workshops and a Going Abroad event for second year BA Connect with Latin American Studies. We will also cooperate with the Italian Society as we believe Italy and South America have strong connections and we are hoping to organise trips in cooperation with the Society.
Photos from the Come Abroad meeting of 11 March 2014:
