Hi! My name is Emily Venis and I will be attending the Madrid program this summer. I’m actually currently sitting at my gate, waiting for my plane. I thought it would be fun to write this now, to help with all the anxiety and stress I’m feeling. I’m really excited to go, however, it’s still a bit scary and stress-inducing. As for my education, I’m going to be a junior this fall and am majoring in psychology along with minors in neuroscience, German, and Hispanic language and culture. I am in a sorority at Pitt (Sigma Delta Tau) and I’m also a member of the Women’s Club Water Polo Team. I’m really excited for this opportunity to study abroad! During my senior year of high school, I was supposed to go abroad to Seville with my Spanish class, however, of course, that got cancelled due to Covid. I’m glad I’ll be able to spend some time in Spain and I’ll hopefully be traveling to Seville at some point during my trip. As a psych major, I have a lot of options moving forward in my professional life. I have worked with children in the past, both as an instructor and a coach, and am still unsure if I want to be doing that in the future. As of right now, I am supposed to be interning at a company that works with people with intellectual disabilities. I think this internship will help me figure out if I want to continue working in the field of developmental psychology and if working in an education/programing field is what interests me. Currently I work at UPMC as a Guest Service Concierge (which is basically just a fancy way of saying I sit at the front desk and help direct visitors) and it has also made me think about working in a medical field in the future, such as working with psychiatric patients or working in genetic counseling. This fall I’m taking an introduction to genetic counseling class, which will also help me narrow done what I want to do in the future more. Another thing I’m hoping this internship will help me with is deciding if I want a traditional 9-5 office job or if I need something different in my life. For the longest time I vowed I would never have a job like that, however, as I’ve gotten older, I understand the appeal of continuity and consistency. Every day at 5pm you go home and are done with work. No homework, no late-night shifts, more time for the things I enjoy but don’t have the energy for now. Obviously, being in a foreign country with lots of new and interesting stuff to do isn’t the best 1:1 of my future but it can at least help clear things up for me. Since I’m minoring in Hispanic Language and Culture, it makes sense I would choose the Madrid program. I have been studying Spanish since 5th grade (which is a bit funny, because you would think I’d be fluent at this point) yet I’ve never been able to practically apply my Spanish besides a couple of random interactions here and there. This is the first time I’m actually going to have to rely on my years of learning to be able to live and function. I know it’s going to be a huge learning curve and that I’m going to make a lot of mistakes, but I’m really excited for the outcome. I believe that one can only learn so much about a foreign language in a classroom study and that at some point the student will plateau in their learning unless they are put in an immersive setting. I think that I’ve reached that plateau, since my Spanish has only been improving marginally for the last couple of years, and that this trip will really bring me to the next level. I’m most nervous about the accents and slang, as all of my professors have been South American and, obviously, weren’t using slang. I know that I’ll adapt after some time, and that I can always ask for people to repeat themselves or speak slower. I’m also receiving credit that’s helping me complete my minor, which is exciting. Another added benefit of this program is that since it’ll be improving my Spanish, I can put down on my resume that I have an advanced understanding of the Spanish language (instead of intermediate, which is what I have now). This will help me a lot in the future, since bilingual employees are highly sought after. I will be going to Munich for a little bit (the German minor in me couldn’t resist), however, I don’t anticipate my German improving much. I’m not at a level where I can have casual conversation yet. I only began studying it when I started at Pitt. Nonetheless, I’m still super excited to be going abroad and being able to apply the skills I’ve learned so far at Pitt and in life. Hope you all have a great time as well!