I arrived without a hitch. Arrived at my place safe and
sounds and got to meet some really amazing and helpful people. A friend of a
friend connected me with Patty, the woman who owns the home I am staying in. I
have my own room with a private bathroom attached to the main house. It is very
cozy and feels private, but I still have someone living near me and tons of
dogs to play with! I am in a residential area southwest of the central part of
the city. I like this a lot because I am surrounded by trees and mountains, but
I still have everything I need close by. I have figured out the bus routes
relatively quickly, and Patty has been so nice and driven me around a lot to
show me where stuff is.
I like my study abroad group, I am the oldest, haha. There
are a total of 10 of us, 6 of us are from out of the country and 4 are doing an
exchange from other universities in Mexico. It is pretty common here for
students to do a semester or year exchange with another school. CIDE is a
unique experience in the sense that it is not a university, but a research
institution that offers bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees. 4 students
are finishing their bachelors degree, 5 of us are doing our masters, and one is
a doctoral candidate writing his thesis.
I am trying to explore as much of the city on my own as I
can, and I also enjoy going places with the group. There are no “official”
events for the exchange students as such, but we still try and hang out
together.. I’ve made a map of all the important places in the city I plan on
going. I love googlemaps, it really makes things so easy!
So far, I am taking 2 classes at CIDE: analysis of social
programs and evaluation of education policy. The social programs class will
take the most effort since it is a master’s level economics class, but I feel
ready to tackle the challenge. We have a laboratory component (the class
collectively asked for one) and I will be battling my frenemy: STATA. For my
education policy class I will be working on a report about a pilot program my
professor is working on with some other researchers at CIDE to integrate
technology into education. I will update with more specifics as I get them.
I am also doing an internship for credit at the Mexican
Commission for Defense and Promotion for Human Rights. I will be working on
Institutional Development on projects almost exactly mirroring what I did at
Rainforest Partnership this summer. I will be helping create a database of
potential funders, create a master calendar about of grants, and start an
individual donations program. I will only be going once per week, but it looks
like it’ll be a way for me to perfect some fundraising skills.
I was also just invited to help collect some baseline data
for a research project! I am thrilled because September 6-9 I will be travelling
with 3 other women to interview and survey a small community in San Luis PotosÃ
called Las Margaritas. Something crucial to note about Las Margaritas is that
it is isolated technologically. By this I mean no cell phone signals or
internet connections at all. Our job is to talk to people to get a sense of whether or
not people want to be connected, and, if so, how and why they see this as
desirable. It will be a fascinating experience, no doubt.
I look forward to see what the rest of my time here brings. I will continue to post pictures here. Keep in touch!
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