I was able to travel around Ireland and visit horse farms, races, training facilities, rehabilitation centers, and much more. My program allowed me to learn about horses in a hands-on experience. Each experience taught me something new and helped me apply what I have learned academically into a real-world situation. My plan is to be an equine veterinarian, and this experience really helped me learn what to expect and much more. My program made me feel like I have a better understanding of myself and my goals in life. I also feel more confident and comfortable with creating new connections with different people. I really enjoyed this program because I found that I am at peace when I can be around animals. I have always loved animals and everything about them and study abroad helped prove this point for me. I never once got homesick because I was always around animals every day, and I had such a great time that I barely had time to worry about life at home.

I thought that I was going to be scared and very homesick during my program because it was my first time ever traveling. I was very concerned, and I was worried that I would not have been happy while on my program because I was going to be worried about traveling around and what was going on at home. I have never been on a plane and had two seven-to-eight-hour plan rides going to and from Ireland and that made me worry. I have always heard bad stories about flying from others which worried me the most. For my first plane ride I was stressing on the way to and at the airport because I was so worried I would miss my flight. When I finally got on the plane, I started to worry that I would get claustrophobic but thankfully I never did. From take off to landing I never had any issues, and my stress went away immediately after I realized it was not as bad as people made it out to be to fly.

While in Ireland, I learned that the people there love to educate others on anything and everything, you just have to ask. I also learned that it might be scary at first to be away from home, but in the end if you are willing to open up and learn new things it can be an exciting and fun experience. One issue I did run into is that Ireland has non-English speaking areas and the people there have thick accents. It was difficult at first to understand people sometimes because the language barrier and heavy accent. When I ran into an issue of the language barrier or having a heavy accent, I would just let them know that I can only speak English or ask them nicely to repeat what they said because of their accent, and it was never an issue after that.  

Before and while traveling, one thing that I was told repeatedly was that my program would be extremely expensive, and that honestly scared me away to the point that I almost did not study abroad. I am a fist generation college student, and I was expecting to pay for everything by myself, which is not possible for me to do. After extensive research, I found that there are different ways to afford a program abroad. I found that the best way to afford a study abroad program is scholarships, so I applied for every and any scholarship that I could find. After a lot of work and many scholarship applications later, I found that almost all my program was paid for because of the scholarships I applied for. From this I learned that there is always help for people who are willing to look for it, and that there is more than one way to afford to do something you love or are interested in.

Name: Kayleen Ramirez
Status: Senior
Major: Animal Science
Hometown: Millington, Michigan
Program: Exploring Irish Horse Industries