Author: Rose Walters |Major: Biology |Semester: Summer 2025

Caribeans Chocolate and Coffee farm in Puerto Viejo

This summer, I studied medical Spanish at Universidad Veritas in San José, Costa Rica. Although I considered other Spanish language programs, none had as specialized a language course as Costa Rica. I am currently on the pre-medical track and hope to begin work in a clinical setting this year, so medical Spanish was a perfect fit for my post-undergraduate aspirations. Additionally, Northwest Arkansas has a high proportion of native Spanish speakers and the ability to speak a Central American dialect of Spanish is incredibly valuable to individual and community health outcomes for these patients, especially Spanish-only residents. I have many different personal reasons for learning Spanish, but my professional goal of this study abroad was to be able to interact with and improve my community at the U of A. Lastly, I love to hike and explore in my free time and Costa Rica’s stunning biodiversity, jungles, volcanoes, and beaches were a perfect fit for my personal interests. Ultimately, all of the stars aligned academically, professionally, and personally for this five-week program and I could not be more grateful for it.

 While in Costa Rica, I took two courses: Intermediate Spanish for Health Professionals and Cultural Psychology. Both of my classes had high language, fluency, comprehension, and composition expectations, which living in a Spanish-only homestay aided immensely. Although I am still an intermediate speaker, all of these skills drastically improved my fluency during my time in Costa Rica. I am especially proud of my progress in conversational Spanish. One memory that particularly stands out was being able to talk to my nail tech in Spanish my entire two-hour appointment.

In Spanish for Health Professionals, we learned specialized healthcare vocabulary in Spanish, improved on older grammar concepts and learned new ones, and practiced our listening comprehension and vital collection skills with Tico volunteer patients. Although there are still complicated topics I struggle to explain in Spanish, my experience with my class, professor, and volunteer patients taught me that a little bit of Spanish makes a big difference in patient comfort. Because of this, I hope to bring these skills back to the Northwest Arkansas community this school year in a clinical setting.

In Cultural Psychology, I learned basic psychological concepts from the perspective of a  collectivist Costa Rica. Relative to the individualistic perspective psychology is taught from in the United States, it was interesting to experience and observe a more holistic and interactive approach to cultural psychology. Our activities made me genuinely reflect on my own individualist behaviors – monochronism, high uncertainty avoidance, and low context communication – from a more objective perspective. I realized that many of what I would consider personality traits were truly more reflections of the American culture in which I was raised, which is a deep self-reflection that I appreciate this class for.

My best advice for future students interested in study abroad is to be adaptable: culturally, socially, academically, and personally. Items or services that are considered basic in the United States may be unavailable luxuries in your host country, so students should especially prepare for changes in their daily routines. Plans, goals, and your perspective will change, but any challenge during study abroad can be overcome with a determination to learn and adapt. In the end, you will have a deeper and more meaningful understanding of your host and home countries as well as a new, unshakeable courage.