Hi everyone! My name is Oscar Ríos. I’m a 4th year student studying Political Science, and I’ve reached the two month mark of my student exchange here at University College Dublin (UCD for short) in Dublin,Ireland! It has been quite the experience so far! Surprisingly, I went through no jet lag on the 6 hour flight from DC to Dublin. But once I started settling into my dorm and meeting my roommates, culture shock and homesickness hit me in the face. I’ve been a commuter student since day 1 at GW, up until I boarded the plane to Dublin, so living in an on-campus apartment with several other study abroad students felt a little weird, but I’ve ended up adjusting to it well. I’m currently taking several courses here at UCD that I would not have thought about taking at GW. Even though I’m a Politics major here at UCD, I’m also able to take Archaeology courses, for example, Discovering Ireland, which is a field-trip based course that involves taking two guided field trips throughout the semester and then writing a long journal entry. Learning about prehistoric Ireland has been really interesting, and exploring its built landscape that has survived the archaeological record has been really fun!
Even though my time here at UCD has been nothing short of amazing, living in Ireland does have its drawbacks. Food connects me back to my Salvadoran culture, and there are unfortunately some ingredients here in Ireland that are harder to get and aren’t commonly in shops here. Unlike DC and the surrounding areas, there are no Latino supermarkets that stock household goods, like masa harina, which, as some know, is the flour used to make tortillas, and I really do miss my mother’s fresh tortillas that she makes several times a week. However, on this note, the diversity of food here has been pretty good. While the supplies aren’t as common back home, there are small specialty shops that give me options, but they are a bit expensive compared to the shops back in DC. I’m really grateful for these small shops, because I am not only supporting small businesses, but they help remind me of my mother’s cooking back home, which I really do miss. I also miss my dog! He’s about two years old and has been keeping me company at home when I’ve been on GW school breaks and I really do miss him being around. But, hopefully within the next two months, we’ll reunite and be back together again soon!
Two months here have flown by quickly, and I can only imagine who the next two months will be as I wrap up the second half of my studies here at UCD! It’s a geographically large campus, with two large ponds in the middle of it! UCD also has 33,000 students, making it the largest university in all of Ireland. All of this is much much different than GW, which is a lot to take in, but I’ve found the walk to class doesn’t take more than 20 minutes from my dorm to my classes. In conclusion, I’m more than grateful to call UCD my home for the past 2 months and the next 2 to come, and I can’t wait to share more!
Oscar Rios
GW Exchange - University College Dublin
Spring 2023
Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
Political Science Major