Apeksha's Final Thoughts on Her European Experience

It doesn't seem like it was too long ago that I flew into Europe to start my study abroad experience, but now it's almost time to leave. On a whole, these six weeks have been absolutely amazing since I've been able to study a subject of great interest to me and have traveled to places like Paris, Ireland, Venice, Cambridge, London, Longleat, Stonehenge, and more.

Medical Ethics
I didn't really know what to expect when I came to the UK to study medical ethics as a one-on-one course with an Oxford professor. I had already been in contact with my professor, Dr. Paula Boddington (5th picture), before leaving UTD and was definitely a bit nervous since I was coming from more of a research related background than an ethics related one. However, that's exactly why I chose to study this. It was to become more aware of issues that I don't necessarily come across in my science heavy curriculum. A look into the topic of consent to treatment allowed me to examine patient autonomy and circumstances in which patients may not be competent enough to consent to treatment themselves. Although consent in research (my next topic), was in some ways similar to consent to treatment, it also involved another dimension which went beyond the scope of just participant autonomy since different forms of research involve their own unique set of ethical concerns. In genomics research, for example, advancement of technology makes it harder to determine whether principles such as broad consent are more acceptable since the original terms under which consent was obtained may not apply to other possible future uses of the data. The third topic, which was probably my favorite subject this summer, was decision making in medical ethics since I looked into the importance of ethical reasoning and use of emotions in moral arguments in medicine. There was a great emphasis on aligning one's moral responses with his/her moral principles and beliefs. The final topic I chose to write about was resource allocation in healthcare which allowed me to look into an array of interesting questions when deciding how to fairly distribute scarce medical resources in a society. For example, to what extent should individuals be held responsible for the conditions they're suffering from such as lung cancer due to smoking or liver failure due to alcoholism? Should this affect resource allocation? Overall, this course really gave me the chance to look into a variety of issues concerning four main values in medical ethics including autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Travels
Apart from the course, the best thing about studying abroad was being able to travel to places within and outside of the UK with friends. I traveled to Cambridge and London with other students in the program (the program organized these two trips for us). Maybe it's just because I've been studying at Oxford, but I must say that I liked Oxford more than I liked Cambridge (although Cambridge was just gorgeous). Along with these trips, a group of the girls and I made plans to travel to Paris from June 3rd to June 5th. The weather was great and it was a good bit warmer in Paris than in Oxford which was definitely a nice change. We visited the Eiffel Tower (went to the top), Arc de Triomphe, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and the Louvre. Since we really spent only one whole day in Paris (June 4th) and walked around a great deal, we were pretty exhausted by the end of the day. After dinner, some of us decided to take a walk so we could see the Eiffel Tower at night from afar but we ended up walking straight up to it (grabbing delicious macaroons on the way of course). The tower would sparkle every hour (I think) so we were able to see it sparkle at midnight and then at 1...beautiful would be the right word to describe it. On our way there, it started raining pretty heavily so we were soaked by the time we got back but since it was warm, it was actually a nice walk in the rain. Completely exhausted but content with our day in Paris, we fell asleep as soon as we got back to the Westin in Paris. After coming back and submitting my third paper on decision making in medicine, my next trip was to Ireland from June 11th to June 14th. Once again, this trip was similar to the trip to Paris, in that a bunch of the girls and I planned it just a few days before leaving. We stayed near Dublin and were able to check out the coast, the city itself, Glendalough (a glacial valley in Wicklow), and Dollymount Beach. Although Dublin itself was nice, my favorite part of the trip to Ireland was taking a four hour hike around Glendalough since the scenery was breathtaking. Also, our trip to the valley itself was amazing since while on the train, we could see a beautiful view of the water on one side and a great view of Ireland's massive green hills on the other side. Definitely a much more relaxing trip than the one to Paris (since we were there longer), Ireland was a different experience for me and I'm glad to have visited. Unfortunately, we weren't able to travel to the Cliffs of Moher but I guess that'll have to be for another time. After gettting back from Ireland, I worked on and submitted my final paper about resource allocation in medicine and enjoyed my time at Oxford with the other girls since they were unfortunately going back to the U.S. in the next few days. Meanwhile though, I was getting ready for my next trip (which unlike the rest of my trips, was actually planned before I came to study abroad) to Venice from June 22nd to June 26th. I was especially excited about this trip because not only would it be my first time in Venice but I would also see a bunch of familiar faces. Over the course of my stay in Venice I was able to see Anna, Sachin, Josh, Grace, Kayla, Lauren W., Matt, John, Ben, Greg, and Monica (since they were all studying abroad in a castle in Italy and took a trip to Venice from the 22nd to the 26th as well). Like in the case of Paris, it was much warmer in Venice than it was in Oxford so I was fairly pleased with the weather. On our first actual day there, we visited the Rialto Bridge, the Basilica, and the Doge's Palace (the prisons were actually pretty cool) at San Marco and then Anna and I visited La Fenice (the opera house) where we were able to see a choir rehearsal. We ended the day with a really nice Vivaldi concert (Four Seasons) and headed back to our hotel. The next day, we went to the islands of Murano, Burano, Torcello (definitely my favorite), San Michele, and Lido (where we watched a beautiful sunset). The last day was also fairly relaxed since we checked out the Biennale, a contemporary art exhibit in Venice that occurs every two years, and then chilled for much of the rest of the day (of course, we went back to Lido to watch the sunset again since it was so beautiful the first time around). It was a great trip to Venice and I'll definitely miss the time that I spent taking rides on the Vaporreto, navigating through the city and it's narrow alleyways, and just having a good time relaxing with people I already knew from UTD. When I came back to Oxford, I spent the rest of the week checking out various museums on campus (including the Ashmolean, Natural History Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum, and the Museum of the History of Science), visiting the botanical gardens, and going punting with my friends (which was a pretty awesome experience).

Reflections
When I look back at my study abroad experience, I just keep wondering how I was able to take a medical ethics course at Oxford and travel so much in a span of just six weeks. It has been an intense six weeks mainly because there was always something to do but I absolutely loved it! I was asked whether I've been through any change of persepective after studying abroad and quite honestly, I don't think I'll completely know until I'm back in the states. In some ways, I've been able to take a step back, take a look at the big picture, and be a lot more calm and relaxed about things than I usually am which is nice. Although I wanted to be able to meet up with familiar faces while abroad (and I'm glad that I did in Venice), I knew that I wanted my study abroad experience to be fairly independent on the whole and it worked out nicely for me. I was lucky enough to make friends with a group of girls I was comfortable enough with to make trips to Paris and Ireland. It's been a great study abroad experience for me and I hope that all the other scholars are having a great time abroad as well. The amount of time that I've spent at Europe seems just right -- I'm very satisfied with what I've learned and seen here, but I'm equally ready to go back home and start shadowing a doctor in pediatric emergency. Then I shall see everyone when I'm back in Texas!

Marissa sees similarities between Dallas and Buenos Aires

Several days into this program, I realized that the image I had had of Argentina was very different from the reality. With no prior knowledge of the country or even of the continent, I had unconsciously visualized pedestrian cobblestone roads lined with short, squat buildings, strings of globe lights flung artfully around café patios, candle-lit tables, and brightly colored skirts twirling crazily on the dance floor of a milonga. The skirts in particular were the image that popped into my head whenever I thought of this trip, and since doing as the Romans do is always wise, I packed a previously unworn knee-length white skirt with bright daubs of orange and purple.
When we left the airport, I realized that Buenos Aires is very similar to Dallas, at least in appearance. After a week, I became more familiar with the similarities and differences between the two cities. Buenos Aires is more similar to Dallas than I expected, but a lot of characteristics of the city make it rougher, for lack of a better word. Bags of garbage lines the streets, tiles on the sidewalks are cracked, loose, or missing completely, political graffiti and posters cover every exploitable surface there is. The feeling that struck me most strongly about Buenos Aires was that the entire city is crumbling. Other phrases that come to mind are that the city is “rough around the edges” or “coming apart at the seams.”

At our pre-travel orientation, we were warned of culture shock and how it can darken a study abroad experience. I realized that in Buenos Aires, I was experiencing the opposite of culture shock: the city was simply far more similar to Dallas than I was expecting. There lots of people and lots of tall buildings. It is always very crowded. I have to commute forty-five minutes to school each day, and in order to get just about anywhere from my apartment, I have to plan a complicated route of trains and busses, something which the car-less on campus in Dallas are familiar with. I know now that I should have expected Buenos Aires to be a large, crowded, dirty city, but in a way, having my expectations dashed to bits was kind of fun—It made every day more of an adventure.

Husain ends his trip to Argentina

The last week in Argentina has been great. We went to Tigre, a city north of Buenos Aires with beatiful river tributaries. We were able to talk to members of the Buenos Aires Rowing Club, and also toured the river by boat. There were many beautiful houses lining the river bank along with lots of shrubbery and trees.
We were also able to experience walking the streets of the Once neighborhood, which was lined with clothing stores and busy people. I also got to spend some time with my host father, talking about all sorts of topics. He has helped me very much in settling in the country and in learning the language. It has also been very fun to joke with him, as he has a lot of good humor. I will certainly miss living with the Carroll family; living with them has made this trip a wonderful experience.
Tomorrow will be the last day of classes, and will be a day full of goodbyes. Looking back, we've learned several things about Argentina's history, culture, and language that has enriched our knowledge. I'm glad to have completed this course and experience, and hope that future students in this program have a great experience as well.

A Geneva Getaway

During my freshman year as a physics major at UTD, I had taken an honors mechanics course with a fantastic professor named Dr. Joe Izen. Two weeks after spring semester ended, he left for Geneva, Switzerland on a year-long sabbatical. He worked on a project at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research and world-famous location of the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator and a theoretical physicist’s dream laboratory. However, we kept in contact through e-mail, talking about bicycle lane projects on the UT Dallas campus he would eventually come back to and my progress as a physics major. He even wrote the main professor’s recommendation for my successful Udall Scholarship application, all the way from Europe. However, perhaps the most exciting message came approximately a week after I arrived for my ten-week internship in the Netherlands:
“Well, you’re not too far away now and staying the entire summer! Would you be interested in coming to visit us at Geneva for a weekend?”
Opportunity’s knock drummed in my ears as I immediately logged onto easyjet.com and searched for a flight between Amsterdam and Geneva. Ninety dollars. It was almost too good to believe, only $90 between me, and CERN, and Switzerland.
My trip? Absolutely fantastic. A lot of school tours visit CERN, and students can walk through halls of old particle accelerators and see the progress of modern computing before their eyes. Did you know that the CERN campus was the birthplace of the World Wide Web? Nowadays, they have a direct working relationship with Intel and often beta-test their newest computer technology before it hits the market. And the second day, the tiny environmentalist inside me was completely captivated by the sight of Mer de Glace, a glacier in the French Alps. I was even more excited when I got to climb down to the icy wonderland and walk and jump all over it, taking photos as evidence that will be mere memories in 30 years’ time.
There was a small issue with locating the glacier at first, since it’s been receding for the past few decades and the original “view point” when you first cross the mountain ridge doesn’t provide much of a view anymore:
[donde esta glacier? Photo]
But ultimately, we were successful and another “Whoosh” site was found, right next to a deep crevasse.
[Whoosh! Glacier photo]

But I really don’t want this article to focus too much on the small, sight-seeing details of this trip. Although it was entirely unrelated to my internship, it fit perfectly according to my interests as a physics student and climate change researcher. I could spend my whole summer—and beyond—exploring every last nook and cranny and hydroengineering feature in the Netherlands, but then I would have missed out on this incredible opportunity to visit CERN and Mer de Glace. What I’m trying to recommend is, don’t get bogged down in the big picture of planning your whole semester and summer down to the wire, so that your eyes are shut to small, but significant opportunities like these. Take a leap and see what you make of it! At the very least, I hope this encourages you to strike up a conversation with (or e-mail) your honors mechanics (or equivalent) professor, and see how they’re doing.

Argetina group thoughts

Jessica H---
Meals have been one of my favorite parts of Argentina, and not just because my host mom is a great cook! Meals are always an interesting mix of Spanish and English (and sometimes even French, since I took it in high school) in order for me to accomplish basic communication. The first week, dinner took about 3 hours every night. We started around 9pm and finished close to 12am, when our host mom, Mama Catalina as she has us call her, finally shoos us out of the kitchen when we try to do the dishes yet again.

Mama Catalina, Jess, Prisha, and I have had some really fun nights. One of my favorite memories is the time I mixed up wedding and deer, and no one could stop laughing long enough to explain what had happened! I have learned so much about Argentine culture around our dinner table and I think that our family dinners will be memories I cherish the most when I leave here

Husain M --
The Buenos Aires experience so far has had a myriad of meaningful sights, sounds, and smells. A walk in the Plaza de Mayo has shown us the Casa Rosada, the Cathedral, and buildings of varying architecture. We saw the Madres de Mayo (mother's of victims of the Dirty War) in their weekly demonstrations as well. Visits to the Parque de la Memoria and the ESMA (a former detention center) have also helped us understand the dark details of the war.
A day trip to an estancia (a ranch for Argentine gauchos) has given us another view on the culture here. The environment was serene, with a vast blue sky and a wide expanse of flat, green land. Riding horses, eating asado (barbequed) beef, and talking with the gauchos made this a memorable day.
Other great places include the Buenos Aires Zoo, the Botanical Garden, and the Teatro Colon. Daily life on the streets has been fun with perusing through markets, eating pastries at confiterias/panaderias, and appreciating the ubiquitous street art.
A full weekend at Puerto Iguazu was incredible with viewing the waterfalls at the National Park. A raft ride through the falls got us all soaked, but we were able to dry off on the sun-exposed beach of Isla de San Martin. The next day we went to the Iguazu Forest to do rappelling and canopying. We were also able to visit Tres Frenteras, the point from which we could see Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina all at once!

Prisha G--
Although the thought of living with a complete stranger was initially daunting, I am very fortunate to have “Mama Catalina” as my host mother. With her kindness and generosity, she has made it possible for my roommates and I to feel right at home in her 10th floor apartment in the middle of Buenos Aires. Though we were strangers to her just three short weeks ago, Mama Catalina has embraced us with kindness and dotes on us all of the time.
While we are busy during the day and spend most of our time far from the house, all of us look forward to returning just in time for the nightly dinner and the hilarious conversations that ensue. Spending time with her and other families has enabled me to realize that this is the way of life in Argentina. Families are of the foremost importance, and the people here cherish spending hours at the dinner table sharing stories of misadventures and even day-to-day occurrences.
Through Spanish, English, and a little bit of gesturing, I have learned about the importance of family to the people of this country, and it’s a lesson I want to take back home with me.