Name: Krista Legendre
Major/Minor: Double majoring in Global Studies and Spanish, with a minor in German!
Hometown: South Sioux City, Nebraska
Year at UNL: Senior
Why Global Studies? Funny story, I was a Nursing major before I went abroad fall semester of 2014. I returned home in December and felt like something was missing, I did not know exactly what, but I knew that nursing was not for me and that I had this new wonder about the world and how it works, and what we do to make it a functioning society not just for us (Americans) but how we integrate with each other with different cultures, history and language. My suggestion for Global studies majors/minors are to make sure you are an open- minded person, willing to get out of your comfort zone to better understand what this amazing world is all about.
Tell us about your study abroad/internship experience. Where to begin… What was supposed to be a semester abroad turned into a year plus summer stay in Granada, Spain. It is in southern Spain (Andalucía). It is the best place I have ever lived/studied in. I had chosen this place blindly, no idea where to place it on a map. When I arrived my world was turned around but in the best possible way. The people are so welcoming. The culture is my favorite because it’s a type of culture where you spend your time outdoors socializing, taking life in a relaxed manor, yes work and being successful is important, but so is taking time to live life and enjoy it. That is what I found so intriguing, I absolutely love that having a coffee at 4pm and sitting about talking with friends and enjoying each other’s company for an hour or two is completely okay. Family is also a key factor in Spanish society; I would have friends that would go weekly to their grandma’s house and have lunch and siesta there. Granada's location was one of my favorite things because I was 30 minutes from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where I could go skiing and snowboarding one day and the next day I could take a 45 minute bus to the beach!
I took a few different classes while abroad because at this point I was not really sure as to what I wanted to do with my career, so I took Spanish classes, along with German as well as an economics class dealing with Spain and Latin America and social demographics class. After taking all of these classes that’s when I knew that Global Studies was the best fit for me. I was fortunate enough to visit many countries while abroad but my absolute favorite aside from Spain was Germany. Its history, the language is so complex and interesting, I hope to someday live and work there and become part of that culture.
I have this theory that everyone needs to live abroad, even if they dislike it, which would be very unlikely, but because this gives society a chance to understand how other cultures function and think the way they do. This could benefit everyone because we would all be a little more educated not simply by what we read or listen to on the news, but because we were able to say we lived it. This could be a big step globally in how we work on making decisions on a global scale. The world is a big library, it taught me things I would have never imagined, to simply learning to read a map in a different language. I met friends that are for a lifetime, and will be visiting already this winter break!
What are you post-graduation plans? Right now after graduation I plan to finish my last year and then return to Europe for a year or two and teach English in an academy. After the two years I plan to find the career abroad that will be long term!