Author: Lydia Krebs | Major: Biology | Semester: Summer 2024
Me at Teotihuacán
This June, I studied abroad in Puebla, Mexico. I have been studying Spanish since my freshman year of high school. My Spanish teacher through my junior and senior years was one of my favorite teachers from my school experience, and one of the nicest women I’ve ever met. She helped grow my love for the Spanish language, as well as global experiences as a whole. With her I went to Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. I loved this program in high school, but it was only for a week, and the majority of the people there spoke English, so it was not the best opportunity for true immersion.
Coming into college, I knew I wanted to study abroad. I chose Mexico because of my study of Spanish. I would get six hours of credit as well, so it worked out well. I spent five weeks in Puebla, with weekend trips to Mexico City, Oaxaca, and the small mountain town of Cuetzálan. While in Puebla, I participated in a business internship at the large bakery chain “La Zarza.” As one of the largest and most popular bakery chains in Mexico, there was much to do on the business end. It was my responsibility to make manuals for use of a couple of different softwares within the company that they would then use for market research and data analytics. During my time at this internship, I realized I did not want to work in an office my whole life,and decided to switch my major from international business to biology.
Other than interning at “La Zarza,” I attended business Spanish classes at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, or UPAEP. The class was officially called Business in Latin America. Our professor taught us things that would prove useful for all of us studying international business, such as models for analyzing culture, the PESTEL analysis, among other things. We made budgets for charities that we made up and presented over those and learned about how brands get people around the world to buy their products.
Our first weekend, we visited Cholula– a small town outside of Puebla, and home to the biggest pyramid in the world. On top of this pyramid sits a Catholic Church. We climbed up the pyramid and visited the church. It was beautiful on the inside, but a tough walk up. Afterwards, I tried traditional Molé sauce. I honestly did not love it as much as I was hoping I would, but it was decent.
Our next weekend trip was to Mexico City. I was pretty sick during this one, but I still believe it was my favorite out of the three. We went to the National Museum of History and Anthropology, and it was really interesting learning about the indigenous communities that lived in Mexico before it was conquered by the Spaniards. We also went to Teotihuacán and saw more pyramids– some of the biggest in the world. We tried pulque, which is the alcoholic beverage the indigenous people of Mexico drank. It’s made from agave, like tequila and mezcal, but it’s much weaker than both of those in alcohol content. It wasn’t bad. That night, some other people from our group and I went to a taco stand that had recently won a Michelin star. I had never been to a Michelin star restaurant, so I was not going to let my illness stop me (though my stomach was not thrilled about it later). I was happy to have the experience, though, and the tacos were amazing.
We also saw some of the historical sites of downtown Mexico City, and got to see how many of them tilt, which I thought was pretty neat. During our trip to Cuetzalán, we hiked to a waterfall. I was still concerned about the illness I had just gotten over, so I hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day, and the hike back was entirely uphill, so I almost passed out. I didn’t though! We didn’t do much in Cuetzálan, but I did get to see the Dance of the Voladores in the square, and we went to another archaeological site.
The last weekend we went to Oaxaca and looked at more pyramids. We actually got to climb up these ones, so I think those were my favorite out of all the pyramids. We also went to a mezcal tasting, but I did not participate much, because during this trip I learned that tequila and mezcal make my stomach hurt. Other than that, we really just explored the city. A few of us went to a bookstore/coffee shop, and we walked around downtown a lot. There was some sort of celebration with parades and speeches right outside our hotel window the whole weekend, so that was a fascinating experience as well. This was really the last time I got to do anything fun, because I spent the last week incredibly sick (again, but worse), and ended up having to go to the hospital to get antibiotics (a second round, stronger this time). Overall, while I spent about a third of this trip incredibly sick, it was a great experience, and I feel I learned a lot about another culture and another way of life.