My name is Allie Leight and I’m a sophomore at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I really enjoyed having classes in the morning here and really just conversing about anything in Spanish really freely and having the instructor criticize me, but in a constructive manner so that when I went out in the afternoon on my own with my roommate, I felt really prepared and able to face the world in Spanish. 

The families here are so close and even in the neighborhoods the people just know each other a lot better and you feel really safe here. I learned how to be on my own and you know, sometimes like, one time I got lost with my roommate and we had to figure out how to read a map and how to ask people for help and we were immediately able to get on the right bus and be where we were supposed to be. But it really taught me how to be on my own and problem solve and all of that, and really feel empowered by that, for sure.