Courses I Took Abroad in Costa Rica

During my time in Costa Rica, I took two classes in the span of five weeks. As a pre-med student it was difficult to decide on classes that would keep me on track for my  prerequisites, but CIS Abroad was able to keep me aligned with my double major and double minor. 

My first class, Health and Psychology  met Monday through Thursday for two hours. The professor used so many real-life examples that related the psychology portion of the course to the real world. The professor is a clinical psychologist that actively sees patients so it made for very good class discussions. Many times the class time was spent with open discussions and whole class engagement. This class consisted of 13 students and one professor, making the student to teacher ratio perfect. The overall outline of the course was very similar to that of what is seen at universities in the United States, but I would like to highlight the open discussion benefits of the course. It allowed me to learn more and be very engaged in my own learning.

The second class I took was Intermediate Spanish for the Health Profession. This course consisted of eight students and one professor. We met every day of the week for three hours where we spent our time doing many different things. Each class we spent the majority of the time practicing vocabulary, sentence structure, verb endings, and implementing it into healthcare field situations. For instance, one of the assignments was an oral presentation with a partner where you practiced the commands related to taking vitals in a medical office. This language and basis of vocabulary allowed me to truly enhance my Spanish.

There was also a very useful textbook in this course that was provided to us in a printed version that we utilized as a workbook. It had dialogue examples, comprehension questions, and many other useful pieces of information. Furthermore, the course had homework assignments that encouraged us to practice dialogues with our host families to get live practice with people who have Spanish as their first language. This was one of my favorite parts of the course because I was able to practice with my host family and they were able to help me enhance my Spanish.

 Before coming to Costa Rica, I felt as though I was more proficient in reading and writing Spanish rather than speaking. However, this course really pushed me to enhance my speaking of Spanish which was super beneficial. However, now, I wish I had more people around me speaking Spanish because it became very fun to practice. These homework assignments also allowed me to enhance my relationship with my host family as I would be learning from them and they would be learning from me. Out of the two courses I took, I would say that this course was my favorite because it is more applicable to the work I will continue to do for the rest of my life. However, that isn’t to say that both courses weren’t incredibly interesting and that I didn’t learn many things from each course.

Blog by Mercedes Rozzi, Westfield State University

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