Why did you apply for the FLAS Fellowship?

I had been studying Portuguese independently for a few years but had always wished I had studied abroad during my undergraduate degree. So, when I found out that UWM had the FLAS Fellowship, I wasn’t going to miss out on my chance to study abroad again. I knew that this experience would allow me to completely immerse myself in the language and the culture, in a way that I never could in America. The summer program was also perfect for me because I don’t have time to study abroad during the school year with my graduate assistantship.

What did you do for the FLAS Fellowship?

I studied in the city of São Paulo for the summer and was enrolled in a language course and a cultural course. We had about 5 hours of classes a day Monday-Thursday and had plenty of field visits to museums around the city, an indigenous village, and a trip to the colonial town Paraty in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Our weekends were completely open, so I was able to travel around Brazil and get to know areas outside of São Paulo as well.

What are you doing now?

I am working on my master’s degree in electrical engineering at UWM and am working at the Center for Sustainable Electrical Energy Systems with Dr. Cuzner.

What have you learned from the experience? How have your language skills and FLAS helped or prepared you?

After this experience I can confidently say that my Portuguese fluency has grown significantly and is now in a spot that would have taken me years to reach without studying abroad. I feel much more comfortable conversing in Portuguese and have begun studying electrical engineering in Portuguese, with the goal of building up my technical vocabulary for opportunities in my future career.