An Aggie, at UFM

Ernesto Porras, dean of the School of Architecture while having a converstation with Stacy Brown at the Academic Building in UFM

Stacy Brown is an Architecture student at Texas A&M University; but before she begins with her Fall Semester at College Station, she is studying at Universidad Francisco Marroquín

Stacy, what brought you to Universidad Francisco Marroquin? Because I was here last year in a summer program and I really liked the University and the country and everything that I experienced here and I wanted to continue the things that I was learning and I like it. Its a good experience.

Are you here as a regular student? Im an exchange student. So I pay all my fees and switch at
Texas A&M but I take my classes here. And everything transfers equally.

The classes that youre taking, are those of the regular pensum?  Are they regular courses? Yes, for architecture.  I have design, and history and construction.  And I also take Spanish classes in the afternoon to help me improve my Spanish since it was very small when I came here. 

Besides the courses that youre taking here at campus, are you traveling or taking advantage of other opportunities? Yes, I like to travel on weekends with my friends or&my parents were here so we traveled around the country for the Easter vacations.

Any difficulty with the language? At first, and some times there are certain words that I dont know but being in the classes, all the classes are in Spanish, it forces you to learn and you learn quickly specially words involving the things youre studying like architecture& I learned those.

You came back after you were here during the summer when you came in a group. Do you recommend the experience? Yes. I recommend it. And I think that the people that I came with, last time, would have come back if they hadnt graduated earlier.

Why do you recommend it? I think is important for people at Texas A&M to experience a different culture. The architecture here is different from what we learn because the buildings are different here, are built, constructed differently and its good to experience something different in case in the future you want to work in another country or and also learning the second language is very important. Very useful and the people are friendly here and I walk to the university so is not inconvenient at all to come here. I recommend it because is a lot of fun.

And about the school of Architecture, do you recommend the experience in academic terms? Yes. Its different because is small and I come from a large university its a good experience to just to experience a different way of the way processes are set up and the small learning circle, its different. Specially when youre trying to learn another language at the same time as learning what youre supposed to be learning its good to that its small, it helps everything.