Hola! (Hello!) My name is Audrey. This year, I will be in Barcelona, Spain, studying the human brain in a neuroscience lab with the University of Barcelona. Specifically, I will be studying a neurodegenerative disorder called Huntington’s disease. Have you ever heard of Huntington's disease?
Living here in Barcelona, Spain has let me combine many of my favorite things – science, medicine, Spanish, and most importantly, meeting new people. While I am here, I am looking forward learning more about the Spanish way of life.
To begin, I am a 22 year-old from Tualatin, Oregon. Tualatin is a small city of 28,000 people. (New York City, in comparison, has 8.5 million!) In high school, my family and I decided to host a student from the Netherlands for a year. This experience opened my eyes to the importance of sharing cultures and learning from each other. In this moment, I learned that friendships have no geographical boundaries.
Just last May, I graduated from a small liberal arts school called Pomona College near Los Angeles, California. At Pomona, I played soccer, studied neuroscience and learned Spanish. In college, I had the chance to study abroad – not once, but twice! I spent my first semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina, studying public health. I chose this destination because I wanted to become fluent in Spanish.
