Student Voices

William Viarnes, '10

Hometown: Grosse Pointe, Mich.
Major(s): Spanish/English

William Viarnes spent five months in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the spring semester of his junior year. For William, the trip was both a time to further his Spanish studies and to reconnect with family. William, from Grosse Pointe, Mich., has family and friends living in Argentina.

"I wanted to reconnect with [them] as well as spend a semester truly experiencing the lifestyle, thoughts and ideals of another culture," he said. "I have been using J-Terms to visit other Hispanic countries."

He went abroad with the AIFS organization, and attended Universidad Catolica Argentina. He stayed with a family in Palermo.

"I enjoyed traveling all over Argentina," he said. "It is a very diverse country with so much to offer that boredom doesn't really seem possible."

When he began planning: "A semester in advance."

Most memorable experiences: "I loved meeting my cousins in Argentina," William said. "Some of the greatest times were going to their house and playing poker all night while talking about soccer or politics. Also, traveling to Ushuaia, where I ran into some friends from UCA in a prison museum."

Biggest challenge: "Getting away from my study abroad group after we had all connected in the first week. Also, Argentina runs on its own schedule — a very late one. So getting used to that and not being on 'military time' as they called it — we call it 'on time' — got to be a bit of a pain." And now that he's back? "Now I run late and have a procrastination problem," he joked.

Biggest surprise: "Learning that so many people spoke English and that they would rather speak English to me than Spanish — not necessarily out of disrespect, but because they really want to hear a native English speaker speak and see how they do in that conversational situation."

What he learned: "I learned a lot about confidence and culture. All the Argentine people were obnoxiously confident, while they still retained a humility and desire to help those in need. It was refreshing to find out that even in a big city, there was a warm familiarity between all of the people there."

Advice for other students interested in studying abroad: Don't go in a group, he suggested. "It makes separation pretty hard when you actually just want to be with native speakers," he explained. "Also, making sure I understood cultural norms and all of the people within the culture helped so that I didn't inadvertently upset someone."

Student Voices

William Viarnes, '10

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