My program focused on social movements and human rights in Argentina. We traveled around the country meeting different groups fighting for their causes including mothers of murdered political dissidents, land squatters, and factory workers.

By far the most meaningful part of the trip was my last month where I didn’t attend class but rather wrote a paper on alternative media sources that focused on helping the homeless.

A huge financial crisis rocked Argentina in 2001, and I interviewed people made homeless by it. I focused on three candidates: one who just started the program, one who was in the middle, and one who was almost fully independent again.

I developed great researching skills as I investigated other alternative media sources drawing on scholarly journals, worldwide news clippings, and then related them back to my own interviews for my 30-page paper.