Hey best semester crew my name is emily cortez i’m a graduate from the usp study program and i got to do that last fall i am a senior here at william jessup university in rocklin california whoa and i got this invite from mark bartels ahead of us p and i am so stoked to just be able to talk about this with you guys i probably wrote 60 blogs while i was there and
The more i can share it the better um i never knew i was going to go to uganda i never even thought about it twice a friend can put that in my ear and i said hey girl sure i’ll go with you i wanted to study abroad never thought it’d be in africa a lot of my peers like oh i have our grafica and that just wasn’t me um but the lord made her really clear and i said
All right lord will go and he really put in my heart that i was going to be a missionary for some time in what context i had no idea to be able to go was just afterward really clear that the that god wanted my first intercultural experience to just be living among people so i had the i had the privilege of being one of eight emmy students so we lived in hat homes
With families the entire time and it can be a little scary at first but the lord showed me how much i was able to just flex right into culture it’s a gift i never knew i had and i was really blessed by that i think one of the first ways that came out was which i already kind of knew about myself which is how quickly a pickup on accents and so every morning when i
Get up i would you know speak to my family they all spoke english but in my ugandan accent you know so i would speak every morning to them and all good morning mama how are you and i would find myself walking to school and and then i’d see one of my my peers on campus good morning shanaya how are you to get emily you don’t have to talk to you on the next i’m sorry
Sorry um i tried to bring some of my american culture with me i tried to do running every day after school that does not work in uganda the thought of a white girl running is pretty hilarious not to mention even in basketball shorts i was stared at and pointed at all look at that was sooo good it was crazy but i was so so blessed and by the relationships i got
To develop their and while i only got four months that sounded like a long time at the beginning and it disappeared really fast i was so thankful and not homesick while i was there but i was blessed when i got to go home i was home and got just said emily where you are physically is where you are emotionally and mentally and spiritually and that’s a gift and i was
So blessed by that regardless of what people want to do if you have a heart bracket or not whether you want to be domestic foreign and whatever it is studying abroad is really awesome one thing that i love about studying abroad with us p is that you go to a country where you stick out no matter how hard you try because you have white skin and that is assuming you
Have you don’t have really dark out but you have you are going to stick out people will watch you and you just have to learn flicks in the culture and it’s really humbling but it’s a beautiful thing and whether or not you ever go abroad again whether you raise family here become a missionary to some foreign islands but nobody’s ever fruitive and being able to live
For months within a culture that you have no idea how it is is the most beautiful humbling thing and really helps you in life no matter where you’re at and i would recommend that anybody who had the opportunity would go and study abroad anywhere but i particularly loved my experience in exact
Transcribed from video
Best Semester- USP Casting By Emily Cortese