My name Alejandra Gomez-Limon. A little bit about myself is that I
am originally from Mexico City and then
moved to England for four years and then
finally came to the US for my time in
high school.
I was actually looking for schools with
some type of International Studies major
and the reason why that is is because I
knew I wanted to pair that up with
something else so that would give me a
broader, more applicable part into
whatever else I wanted to do which
ended up being political science. I think
altogether it made me see what the
value is of understanding all those
different cultures through not just
simply like the international relations
piece of it here but also understanding
the human aspect through religion
classes so that you can relate to other
people better.
So I took two study abroad semesters when
domestic and one actual abroad. Abroad
experience was in Freiburg Germany.
I took the European Union program with
IES and basically we're stationed in
Freiburg and then from there depending
on our classes would go to different
countries and have interviews and then
just go see historical sites that are
important to what we're learning about.
So I was able to travel to nine countries
with the program and then additionally
do some fun traveling on my own. My
second one was I went on a more so
domestic program from Hope in DC. It was
the political science honors semester,
and there I was able to work with an
organization that helped with detained
immigrants so that is almost a lot of
international work when it came to
communicating with different clients and
their families. Overall the experience
was amazing and they also got to meet
some very cool people including the
staff in the Kenyan embassy.
So I had three main internships
throughout my time at Hope. The first one
that worked at the Consulate of Mexico
in Detroit and I was focusing more. So in
the political cultural department and
worked a lot with licenses for
immigrants from Mexico or other Latin
American immigrants.
After that I interned for Congressman
Huizenga which I asked for a focus
on immigration really and through that
I was I worked a lot with Cuban
immigrants and then finally was the DC
experience which was with CAIR Coalition.
Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition and we basically worked as a
little nonprofit law firm. We worked with
detained immigrants and we took some
clients in-house and others we matched
with pro bono lawyers, and through them
all I've always been able to weave in my
understanding of different political
backgrounds, different cultural
backgrounds, religious backgrounds and it
sounds a little bit repetitive but it's
completely different having an academic
background to what people are talking
about, what people are living through in
order to be successful in whatever it is
that internship is asking of you.
I think the first thing I would say is
if you want if you have at all an
interest to work abroad, in any shape or
form, this would be a major worth having
just so that you make those transitions
easier for yourself as well as
understanding all of those different
peoples and people you're gonna interact
with a lot better. And then the second
thing would be that the major is so
easy to pair up with something else and
give it the focus that you want, whether
that be through languages I've mentioned
before or anything else that is going to
make it a worthwhile major to have in
order to just be a global citizen that I
think is so valuable as well as kind of
necessary at this point given the
world we live in. Then after that, create a
great four year plan to plan out exactly
where you want to go for your study
abroad how you want to make it work with
the classes, general education credits,
and all that. If you do it strategically
enough so that way it would just be a
breeze through the
four year plan.
