{"id":53283,"date":"2019-03-19T20:18:43","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T20:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/?p=53283"},"modified":"2021-03-29T15:03:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T15:03:06","slug":"trio-student-reflections-from-abroad-erika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/2019\/03\/19\/trio-student-reflections-from-abroad-erika\/","title":{"rendered":"TRIO Student Reflections from Abroad: Erika"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an excerpt from a student’s reflection written for Augsburg TRIO’s spring 2019 newsletter. Please see the newsletter<\/a> for the original post in full. Thank you to Erika and TRIO for sharing with CGEE!<\/em><\/p>\n

1.) Where did you study abroad? Why did you choose this location and\/or program? How did you hear about the program?<\/p>\n

I studied abroad in Southern Africa and had the honor of visiting South Africa and Namibia. I chose to study abroad through the Nation-Building, Globalization, and Decolonizing the Mind in Southern Africa program because of my interest in politics. I heard about this program through the Center for Global Education & Experience and the MSS office.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.) What did you learn from this experience?<\/p>\n

Of the many things that I learned during my four-months abroad, I would like to highlight learning about the political development in Southern Africa.\u00a0\u00a0For my integrative project, I researched the poor governance in Namibia, and learned that the social, economic, and sustainability issues in Namibia stems from the abuse of power in the government. The research I conducted helped me better understand how government, politics, and law should work with the community in order to better create a fair society for all.<\/p>\n

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3.) Were there any challenges you encountered and how did you handle it?<\/p>\n

One\u00a0difficult challenge to grasp\u00a0from my experience abroad was the issue of racism.\u00a0 Due to my lighter complexion, many local individuals considered me as a white person because of their past history of the liberation struggle from the Apartheid System. Another challenge I encountered was the language barrier. Namibia has 26 different languages and the program prepared me for the basic of one dominant language, Oshiwambo; which was not enough to maneuver around places. The racism I faced was not a threat, it was actually a privilege, but an uncomfortable experience. I handled these encounters by explaining myself and\u00a0informing others why it is problematic to generalize. Lastly, for the language barrier, I created flashcards through Quizlet and practiced Oshiwambo with friends or my\u00a0co-workers at my internship site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an excerpt from a student’s reflection written for Augsburg TRIO’s spring 2019 newsletter. Please see the newsletter for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":236,"featured_media":53284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-auggies-go-global","category-southern-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/236"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53431,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53283\/revisions\/53431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}