CAPA WORLD

Meet Shivani Pandya, an official CAPA Blogger in Buenos Aires for Spring 2019:

University: University of Pittsburgh
Major: Bioinformatics
Study abroad location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Internship or volunteer placement: TBC

Only a very small percentage of US students intern abroad. The experience alone can make you stand out from your peers in a pile of resumes once you graduate and will no doubt be a conversation starter in an interview. If you put the effort in and set goals for yourself before you begin, it can be even more than a conversation starter. You will have opportunities to learn some truly important life and career skills that you might not gain in a domestic internship.

Here are just 5 skills (out of many) you can gain from interning abroad.

Let’s be honest: studying abroad is an incredible experience, but it’s not an automatic ticket to landing a job when you graduate. Yes, listing an international internship, for example, can make your resume stand out in an inbox full of applications, but it’s not until you learn how to talk about your experience in a meaningful way that your future employer’s ears will really perk up. And it’s not until you take ownership of your experience—by learning how to recognize, pursue, and nurture the skills that are key to your personal and professional development while you’re abroad—that you’ll be able to do that.

One of CAPA’s five Student Learning and Development Outcomes(SLDOs), set for those studying abroad in all of our cities, is a focus on personal and professional development.

Having noticed that there aren't as many travel tips available for Buenos Aires than say...London, CAPA Alumna Claire Shrader shares her recommendations for those interested in studying abroad in Buenos Aires. 

When you go to London, they tell you to eat the fish and chips. When you go to Spain, they tell you to enjoy the paella and book the cheap RyanAir flights around Europe. So, then, what must you eat, do, and explore in Buenos Aires? I’m here with a few of the best.

CAPA Alumni Claire Shrader shares 3 areas in which she's noticed a lasting benefit from studying abroad in Buenos Aires. 

Everyone has a different purpose in spending a semester abroad. For me, there were many, but one of the biggest reasons was to greatly improve my Spanish ability in a way I knew I could only do by being immersed in it 24/7. Man, did Buenos Aires totally surpass all of my hopes in that regard. It was amazing to me to watch my language ability develop from the first day, where I shyly rode the whole way back from the airport without saying a word, to two days later, where I was laughing and chatting with my host family, to two weeks after that, where I was so comfortable speaking, and could understand them most of the time, too, to two months later, when I understood almost 100% of what was said to me, and was able to articulate my thoughts and ideas in a way that made sense, and was actually, dare I say it, almost eloquent.

CAPA Alumni Claire Shrader reflects on some of the most important things she learned about herself while studying abroad in Buenos Aires, and the different outlook on life she gained from her time abroad.

I think those of our friends who have not studied abroad could definitely tell those of us who have that the line, “I miss _________ about studying abroad!” has become a staple in our conversations. Living in another country for 3-4 months is no small endeavor, and processing it once you’re home often hits at strange moments. For me, the smell of exhaust as I wait at the stop light to get to my dorm can take me right back to my 12-minute walk to the subway station in Buenos Aires, where I took subway D to my internship in Belgrano. It’s a small thing—just a stop light and a smell—but that experience is so fresh to me, that’s all it takes to instantly transport me back to that moment. There are a million things I miss about being in Argentina, and most of them revolve around food, ha.

But along with all of the things I miss, every time the word “Buenos Aires” comes to mind, I can’t help but think of the things I learned while there, too.

Will you represent your study abroad city as one of our official CAPA bloggers or vloggers for Spring semester 2019?

Each term, we select a team of student bloggers and vloggers to share their study abroad experiences on the CAPA World blog. Depending on your program length, each student on our team of storytellers will receive a grant of up to $500 along with up to $150 as an explorer fund to help you create awesome bi-weekly content for the CAPA World blog.  You can choose to blog or vlog, and this year, we're also opening two positions for Instagram TV vloggers in London and Florence.

Besides helping finance their adventures, previous CAPA bloggers and vloggers have loved the experience for a bunch of different reasons. Without further ado, here are 9 reasons to become a CAPA blogger or vlogger:

Calling all institutions!

This April, join us in Buenos Aires at our Global Education Workshop to get a first-hand look at our programs in this incredible city.

Global Education Workshop in Buenos Aires: April 6-11, 2019

CAPA Alumni Claire Shrader reflects on why she chose to study abroad in Buenos Aires and discusses what made her fall in love with the city, musing on why the unique characteristics of the city and it's people might just have you falling in love with it too! 

“Why Buenos Aires?” was often a question I was asked in the months and weeks leading up to my time abroad. I thought I knew how to answer it before I went, and I did, kind of.

I told people that I had been twice in high school, totally fell in love with the language, culture, and people, and had been dreaming of going back and delving deeper into the relationships I began six years ago.

That answer only just barely touched the surface of why Buenos Aires was the perfect place for me, and there’s so many more reasons why I think it could be the perfect place for you.

Nora Callahan is an official CAPA blogger for summer 2018, sharing her story in weekly posts on CAPA World. An International Affairs and Math major at Northeastern University, she is studying abroad in Buenos Aires this semester.

In her last post, Nora reflects on her time abroad, why she was enthusiastic to document her experience, and how she got to know Buenos Aires better by being in the present—thanks to a broken phone.

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The first concrete challenge I encountered happened right as our first week in Buenos Aires was wrapping up. It’s embarrassing to admit, even though I wasn’t alone in this, but my phone broke. It was dropped in the rain and when my host family heard that...they said to put it in rice for a week in case it was the water. I was skeptical and thought that a week was a little excessive, but I really wasn’t in any position to turn down potentially phone-saving advice. So, I spent my second week in this foreign city without my regular trusty iPhone. What’s an American millennial abroad to do?

The streets of Buenos Aires on film.

I actually really enjoyed the experience. I planned ahead with friends and ran into different people for some unplanned meetups on a few occasions. I used a, now very-well-loved, paper map of the city to get around and checked the time on whatever clock was in sight, thinking, “If I’ve left and am on my way, I will get there when I get there.” A cell phone will not change that.