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Studying Abroad in Lyon, France 2019-2020

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Hi, everyone! I'm Mary Pimentel, a 19 year old sophomore at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and I was raised in Newman, California.  I'm writing today because I am applying to study abroad for my junior year of college at the University of Lyon, France, through the University of California Education Abroad Program (UC EAP). Any of you who know me may already know that since I was about 9 years old, I have been in love with France and the French language/culture. I'm sitting in my bedroom now that is still decorated from floor to ceiling with pictures of the Eiffel Tower and French quotes. Loving French was never a phase of my childhood, it has been a steady interest that is now developing into something much larger; less than a week ago, I declared a double-major in French to officially make me an English and French double-major. Thankfully my undergrad education has allowed me to further explore the love I have for French, especially by considering studying abroad, and now there is a chance that I can take my education to the next level and open many doors for myself by the time I return. If I study abroad, I will be gone from late August of 2019 until June of 2020. I have estimated how much my Financial Aid will cover, and after everything I will need about $10,000 to cover airfare, room, and board. I am asking for $5,000 in this gofundme because I am working very hard saving my own money from my jobs as well as applying to over 10 scholarships.  Right now I have three jobs aside from being a full-time student at UCSB. I am a waitress at two different locations and an exam proctor for my university's Disabled Students Program. I work at the least 25 hours per week, and with my paychecks, scholarships, and student loans I have been paying for my own tuition and room and board. Even with my workload, I am happy to say that I ended this fall quarter of 2018 with my first 4.0 GPA in college thus far, and my cumulative GPA is a 3.69. You may be wondering now, this is all great but why is studying abroad in France even necessary? Well, in truth it's not. No one needs to study abroad. But studying abroad puts students out of their comfort zones and increases cultural sensitivity, as well as increases fluency in a second language. As for my own interests, I've found that I incredulously enjoy Translation Studies and comparing literature/medias in different languages, especially French and English. Though I am only beginning to understand what my career life could be one day, and I am nowhere near fluent just yet in French, I love the idea of being able to act as a bridge of understanding for two groups of people. I want to be a translator for French and English as well as a writer, and I can also see myself traveling to France or other francophone countries like Belgium, Madagascar, Haiti, or Canada, in the future and teaching English there. And yet, I am not waiting for a cap and gown in order to begin doing these things. This past month, I turned a homework assignment from my French 3 class into a children's book. I wrote a fable in French called "Le Perroquet Pensif", and it's a story about a parrot who learns to speak after finding a role model to guide him. I found another student at my college who is an artist to collaborate with me as my illustrator, and together we will publishing what I hope is my first of many bilingual texts. I will be translating the fable into English in order to have both the English and French versions available. When I finalized this fable, I felt as though I got the tiniest glimpse of my future. Writing is what makes me happy and I cannot wait to turn my happiness over to others through my storytelling, translating, and teaching using French and English. While I am abroad, I plan on writing almost every day, but absolutely once a week.  I will do more than share my adventures of what it is like to study in another country on my own, I will share my own seemingly impossible story of a girl from a middle-class town who was able to work her way into a university hours away from home and eventually push herself to study across the globe. I would love to come back as an alumni to Orestimba High School, with permission from Mr. Pruett of course, and give a presentation on my journey to inspire more students to reach for their dreams and to work as hard as possible in order to do what they love, to be the role model parrot I describe in my own story. Going on this trip next year will surely, without a doubt in my mind, be a life-changing experience for me and be my best decision yet. I don't mean to get too sappy, but I listen to French music daily and daydream about studying in Lyon, making my dreams come true to keep on becoming the woman I want to be. If any of you encourage higher education, traveling, learning another language, or eating way too much cheese and too many baguettes, please consider being apart of this journey with me. If you donate, please let me know if you are interested in "Le Perroquet Pensif" because I would be more than happy to give you a copy for free as well as send you a postcard from Lyon next year. Lastly, if you made it all the way to the bottom of this epic, I applaud you. Thank you for reading and learning about me. À bientôt! (See you soon)!
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    Mary Pimentel
    Organizer
    Goleta, CA

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