The views and opinions expressed in the Graduate and International Ambassador Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Arkansas.
By Diego Montano
Hi, everyone! My name is Diego and I am an international graduate student at the University of Arkansas from Bolivia. I have been living in Fayetteville, Arkansas since January 2014. I graduated from the University of Arkansas with a triple major in Management, Finance and Supply Chain Management with a minor in Marketing. Now I am in my first year of Graduate School pursuing my Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration and Operations Management.
When I decided to leave my home country for my undergraduate degree, I did not think about the changes I was going to face. To my surprise, my first year in a new country was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I made many friends right away that were from Bolivia and having people around from the Latino culture made my first year in college easier. However, the problem with that is that I did not learn much about the U.S culture since I was still in the safety of my own cultural bubble.
When my first year in college was about to end, my mom told me, “I think it is great for you to have friends that speak Spanish and friends from other countries, but I think you should try to get to know people from the country you are living in.” I knew my mom was right and I needed to overcome my fears so that I could truly experience the U.S.
My biggest fear was the language barrier. The thought of having to speak in English all the time with people from the U.S. made me uncomfortable. But still, I decided to overcome my fear and step out of my comfort zone. I started looking for American roommates and I soon found three guys to share a house with. At the beginning, I was nervous because the four of us were complete strangers and I was the only Latino.
When we first moved in, I felt left out. It was the beginning of football season and I did not know anything about American football. I would hear them from my room talking about football and other sports I knew nothing about, and I didn’t know how to participate. I ended up avoiding my roommates, but this did not last long because one of the guys found out what I was up to and decided that it had to change.
He spoke to me and invited me to hang out. I decided I had to take the plunge of going out and meeting new people, even if I didn’t feel very confident around them. Luckily, it all worked out! After that, him and I became super close. I even went to visit his family in Colorado for one of my Spring Breaks and he came with me to Bolivia to get to know my home country and culture. With time I developed closer relationships with the other roommates as well.
Living with American roommates definitely enriched my experience at the University of Arkansas. I was able to practice my English and soon improved my pronunciation and vocabulary. Besides that, I became accustomed to U.S. slang which made my life easier because I could finally understand what the people around me were saying!
My roommates also helped me understand my host culture better—they would answer my questions and explain things about the American culture that I would have otherwise never discovered. I learned about American traditions and I got to spend time with North American families to see how people really lived in the U.S. Being around Americans also taught me a lot about their perspectives on politics and economics.
After all four of my roommates graduated and moved on, I was scared about having to find new roommates and start this journey all over again. However, because past my experience was so great, I decided I wanted to take the risk and find more people to live with who were from the United States. That experience changed my way of thinking and impacted how I make decisions. People can sometimes be closed-minded, but after two years of living with that group of friends I became more open-minded and willing to give things a chance.
I knew I had changed when last year I accepted the opportunity to live with three girls. Many of my friends thought that it was very strange. To be sure, in the past I would have thought so too! However, it was an amazing year living with the three girls that became my friends. The girls were from Texarkana (a city on the border between Arkansas and Texas), Bolivia, and Peru.
I now feel like I am home. I would not have accomplished that feeling if I hadn’t taken the risk to learn more about the people and culture here in the U.S. No matter how scared or apprehensive you might feel at the beginning, I can tell you with confidence that it is worth the risk!
