English Language Challenges

The semester is finally coming to an end, and it feels like it’s been forever. This has been my only English course in the faculty and I’ve had a pretty good time with it.

With the course I’ve been able to get some progress in my writing skills, and talking abilities. Besides that, with the use of the blog posts, I’ve learned to state an opinion on a topic or tell a story in a few paragraphs. I think that the use of the blogs it’s a pretty fun way to practice those things, because they also allow each student to have their voice and unique space since we’re free to customize it how we want to.

Furthermore, I enjoyed the course overall, because it’s an instance for us to practice our skills more than learning English from zero.

When it comes to my English personally, I think that I still need some practice, mostly on my pronunciation, because I still get tongue-tied with some phrases, so it would be a little difficult to maintain a fluid conversation if I ever encountered someone that speaks native English. To work on that, I think that the only thing that I can do it’s to practice, a lot. It can be a little embarrassing to speak English out of nowhere in front of other people, but it’s the only way you can practice pronunciation and get some feedback on how you did.

Out of the classroom, I still use a little bit of English on a daily basis, mainly because we’ve gotten so many references these days that are English based, that they become normal to our daily vocabulary, and from time to time, I’ll have a conversation with a friend in English, just to get some practice and to fool around.

Changes to the Study Programme

Studying at FAU it’s an experience of its own. There are a lot of situations that occur on a daily basis that are either good and fun or sad and annoying.
Starting with the curriculum, I think there is a problem with universities across the country, because, mostly in the first year of college, there are a lot of classes that are fillers for the curriculum. Comparing architecture, in Chile we study up to 6 years only for only an undergraduate diploma, while in other countries, you can do that in just as long as 4 years.

In addition to that, workload is something, I think, that varies from career to career. For all three careers at FAU, there is a lot of work that we have to do, and I think that it’s okay because moving forward in our careers, there is more knowledge that you need to get, so the way of getting that is to start working on it to learn it. Now, all of us struggle with balancing all of the work, because it’s difficult to get enough time for everything, and the faculty doesn’t have all of the tools that all thousands of students that it haves, needs to get their work done.

Therefore, there are a few changes that I’d do to make the experience at FAU a little bit more enjoyable. Starting with getting rid of the classes that are fillers and don’t imply a lot of importance to the career overall. Then, moving on to infrastructure, there’s a lot that FAU needs to improve. From facilitating more spaces to students to work on, to putting more microwaves for us to heat our food, or getting more technology that allows us to get ahead on our work, like more laser cutting machines or printing devices.

However, I’ve had a great time at FAU, even though sometimes I’d prefer to leave everything and live in the woods, there’s a lot of ups and downs, but the good times outweigh the bad.

2019 Holidays

For the upcoming year’s holidays, I’d like to relax for a little while. Since this year has been pretty long academically, it doesn’t end until January, I’d like to spend my time relaxing for the next year activities. As I see it, the firsts weeks after ending this semester would be spent sleeping in or staying at home, maybe watching some Netflix, but after that I’d like to visit different places if I get the chance to.

I strongly believe that we should get to know the different places that our home country offers us, so I’d like to explore more of the north of Chile, because I’ve already gone to the south a few times. Places like La Serena, Coquimbo, even Antofagasta or Iquique, and who knows, maybe utilize the trip there and cross the border to Peru, because I think it’s a cool place, and I’ve never left the country before.

I agree that trips like that sometimes require planning and time, but if none of those trips happen, I’m completely content with staying in Santiago and spend time with my family, my boyfriend and my friends. Otherwise, I totally agree with going on trips for the day to near cities or beaches, because they make fun memories and don’t require a lot of planning beforehand. Trips like that can be very tiring, that’s quite true, but I think those are the best ways to spend the holidays with friends and have a good time overall.

Should Eutanasia or Physician-Assisted Suicide be legal?

Let´s imagine that you are diagnosed with a terminal disease. This disease is incurable, and your body will have to experience all the ups and downs of it until you cannot deal with it anymore. Would you rather go through all of it, or be assisted to a dignified death? That’s why Euthanasia is being discussed nowadays and it’s becoming a really loud topic in the science and legal field. From my perspective, physician-assisted suicide should be legalized for all communities.

Although many other assure that a physician’s ethic is to cure their patients, due to their Hippocratic Oath of ‘Do no harm to the patient’, I think that making them go through a long, discomforting and painful road to their inevitable death isn’t exactly a way of making them ‘no harm’. As MD Robert Olvera says ‘To prolong a death in some cases is not helpful, it can be counterproductive.’ because this will affect them in all ways possible, from their own health, to their monetary state to deal with their disease, and how their pain will affect their loved ones.

Likewise, I think that by approving legally the right of having a physician-assisted suicide we’re not obligating people to have euthanasia, the same way that people are not obligated to donate their organs to others, or even donate their body to science. All of those are rights that we as people are free to choose or not to choose, and that goes to each individual and what situation are going through, and if they feel that their time is enough, or don’t feel strong enough to continue with a battle that they don’t want to.

Therefore, I think that Euthanasia should be a right for all people, for both parts. Either the patients that needs it, and the doctor choosing to help these people or not to. We cannot obligate people to choose things that they don’t want to do, so obligating people to live when they don’t feel strong enough to, is harming the patients, physically, mentally and emotionally.

Post Graduate Studies

In this moment, I'm not sure about wanting to study postgrad. Since I'm just on the second year of my career -with some late subjects already- I haven't thought about a master deeply. After graduating, I'd like to get into the professional world for some time before taking that decision, because that could let me explore a little bit of the whole area and maybe finding an specific path to follow with a post graduate course. 

Nonetheless, if I chose to study a postgrad, I think that I'd like it to be on another country, whether it would be there or through distance learning, because having a course from another college could get you different learning skills and knowledge that the one that we are used to in our home country.

Similarly, if I chose an area to make a postgrad course -from what I've learned in these couple years- I'd prefer something related either to design or sustainability, or even digital design, which I think are areas that could potentially add another string to my bow, and could complement pretty well.

In this case –while looking online so that I could fill this post- I found an interesting course that’s taught in the Umeå University in Sweden. It is a master in Architecture and Urban Design, which according to their website “is operating in-between the artistic and the scientific field of knowledge (…) characterized by a consistent focus on sustainability”. https://bit.ly/2Smi07s

So I might be looking into that in the future.

Future Job(s)?

Before entering college, I imagined myself in a very different area, I thought that I was going to end up in a corporate job, or studying something related to engineering. But I suddenly realized that it wasn't what I wanted for my life at all.

I decided to go for architecture, and I think that I chose pretty well. Particularly I think that it can allow me to work in a different and more expressive way than a normal corporate job.

When it comes to majors, I’d like to specialize in urbanism or urban sustainability, which have been areas of the career that I’ve been really interested in, but who knows what’s going to happen in 2 or 3 years. 

Furthermore, thinking about a future job, I'd like to be able to travel, that way I can learn about new places, cultures and interesting architectural works, or even move abroad completely, so as long as I can get a job in a new place, and make ends meet, I think it's enough.

Simultaneously, I'd like to add another string to my bow, because I think it's very interesting to compliment one skill with another, so I'd like to take some classes -I don't know if a whole new career- about design and photography, which are areas that catch a lot of my attention, and even thought about studying, and I think connect really well with each other.

Hobbies I Used To Have Before College

I'd say that even though school had me occupied for the majority of the day, I used to have a few different hobbies.

When I was out of school, I'd go home and spend the time doing a few activities. At first, I used to do some yoga at home, because I felt that it was a discipline that helped me a lot to relax and stretch the muscles that were a little tense. But I'd say the hobby that I enjoyed the most -and miss doing for fun- is photo and video editing.

Since I was like 6 years old, I was very attracted to computers and the awesome things you were able to do, therefore I started photo and video editing when I was about 11 years old. It's pretty weird how the two hobbies I enjoyed the most were so different, but being able to explore them, has helped me a lot with the things that came with the future, for instance, photo editing, taught me to use Photoshop and other programs, which I now use every day for the projects that teachers assign us for their classes. 

I think hobbies are really useful for life, because they allow you to get into areas your routine doesn’t let you explore freely, therefore, letting you learn new abilities that help you grow as a person.

My Most Beloved Pet

The dog that I have nowadays, I'd say it's my most beloved pet.

It’s name is Terry, and he came to my life when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I believe it was around 2008, which had been a pretty tough year, because my great-grandmother -that I lived with-, passed away at the beginning of that year, and I also had a very stupid accident which ended with me having a cast on my leg for like a month. So my grandma -when she arrived from the clinic that she worked at- came to my room, with an especially big purse. She showed it to me, and inside there was this very little dog, with black and brown fur. I was so happy and so excited, because I hadn't had a dog in a very long time before him.
Today he is like 11 years old, and has been with me through a lot, and I'm so happy to have him still, because at heart he's still that little dog that came in the purse, wagging his tail when you arrive, waiting for treats in the morning, and barking to every moving thing that passes by the front fence.
So yeah, I'd definitely say that Terry it's my most beloved pet, and I hope to have him for many years into the future.

The Best Holiday I've Had

When you ask me about my best holiday ever, I can think of a few, but the one that I look back the most, is the one that happened in the summer of 2016. 

My mom had met my stepdad the year before, and it was the first time the three of us went on vacation together.

That year, we decided to go visit some of my mom’s relatives in Valdivia, but neither wanted to drive that far, neither sit on a bus for like 12 hours, so they decided to book plane tickets. I’d never been on a plane before, so it was really exciting.

The flight was pretty short, and we landed on Valdivia in a cloudy day. We stayed like 4 days with my mom’s relatives, near Niebla, which is a small town in the city. We went to different places each day, like the riverside market, the Kuntsmann beer brewery, a few cultural fairs and the national fail, the Cau-Cau bridge.

After being in Valdivia for around four days, we met with my stepdad’s sister and her husband, which were road tripping all the way from Santiago. They were travelling for a few more weeks, so they invited us to go with them for a few days. 

We started in Valdivia and stopped in a few places, like Frutillar, Puerto Varas, Angelmó, Quemchi, Castro, Chonchi, and Quellón, which is the end of the continental highway, Route 5, that connects Arica with Quellón. We had to take a few boat trips, met really awesome and new places, ate a lot of different foods, and had a really fun time overall.

I'd love to do it again sometime, but to have the experience of doing it backpacking, because these are really beautiful places that are filled with nature and culture.