Travelling the world can be a dream for a lot of people. However, once they’ve got others responsibilities – such as college for example – achieving that dream become a little complicated. But how about bringing together studies and travelling? Those casperians girls did that and their experiences were amazing.
Camille Carboni, sophomore in journalism did a French course in Paris, France. She was a minor, and because of that, according to her “there wasn’t many courses available” the way she wanted – during vacations. She hired a company to help her out, and so they did: since the enrollment until getting on the plane, the company was following every step.
There wasn’t any big complication with her trip, even obtaining a visa was easy. As she had a valid passport she didn’t had to do anything about it. “If I’m not mistaken, you can stay in France without a visa for 90 days, but that changes according to the exchange program you’re into. The only thing I had to worry about was a requirement from the Schengen Agreement, that asked for a travel insurance”, tells Camille.
Another girl who studied a different language is Bruna Melo, junior in Public Relations. She went to a city called Fall River, next to Boston, USA to study English. “My godmother lives there and she told me about this course”, said Bruna. She didn’t hire any company; with her godmother, they saw everything together and she went to Bristol Community College all by herself. “I had to pay the course, do an international health insurance and organize some documents. That’s all!”. As it lasted 3 months, she didn’t have to take a student visa. She stayed 5 months there, two of them visiting the country and the others studying.
Isabella Teixeira did an English course too, but a preparatory for the TOEFL exam. Junior in Public Relations, she went to San Francisco: “I was looking for a course to help me with the TOEFL exam, so I searched for an agency and they helped me through all the process!”. She had to get a student visa to go: “The school sent me a document proving that I was approved and after that I had to fill up the I-20 form, to get the F-1 visa. Then I was interviewed at the American consulate”.
Still in the USA, Isabelle Marques, junior in Public Relations studied Design, Communication and Innovation in California, for three weeks. “I knew about it through Cásper Líbero. The university sent me an e-mail talking about an agency and scholarship so I searched more about it”. The process to get into the course was easy as Camille’s: she had to fill up a form to run for a scholarship and, after she won, she only had to buy the plane tickets – everything else was solved. As the course had a short duration, she didn’t need a student visa either. “I studied at the CSUN University, in Northridge, next to Los Angeles! The classes took place during the morning and at the afternoon I had some Business English classes”, tells Isabelle.
Laís Franklin, senior in Journalism did a dance course in New York City! She went with her ballet teacher and other seven girls who used to attend ballet classes with her. “My teacher has a travel agency, so we saw everything directly with her. We attended the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and we used to pay the classes separately” explains Laís. So, instead of a long-term course, she went to a few friend, attended ballet, hip-hop, Graham and Horton classes during the morning and afterwards visited the city. For that, she only needed the tourist visa.
But what about some different places? Camila Alvarenga has a good story to tell. The senior Journalism student attended a course in Israel and Palestine. “The idea was to understand the conflict between them through interviews, tours, lectures, etc.”. The course was provided by an organization called Education Network for Human Rights in Palestine/Israel, and to attend it, she had to go through a selection process. After that, she had to buy her plane ticket and travel alone, because of Israel’s immigration policy. “I took the visa in Israel. That’s how it works there: they ask you a lot of questions depending of your nationality, your job and what you’re going to do there. If it’s ok, they give you a little piece of paper and that’s your visa”. The same happens on the way out of the country, and another visa is taken.
Leila Maciel, junior in journalism went to Sydney, Australia, to study Film and Television. “I knew I wanted to come to Australia, so I did a research and I found out this course. It has all to do with Journalism, is communication and audiovisual after all”. The enrollment process of the course was pretty easy, but to take the student visa… “Everything is done online, but as it is very bureaucratic, I asked for help from the agency I hired”. Leila told us it took around two months for her to get her visa: “After you pay for the course, you need to send a proof that you have the yellow fever’s vaccine. Then you need to prove that you can support yourself financially there, along with another documents. After they approve all those things, they ask for a medical exam made with a doctor recommended from the embassy”.
Going from the US to Australia, through France and Israel, all these girls have one thing in common: they all went alone to a different country to study. No matter where they went to, the experience to all of them was worth it.