Why?

I knew, heading into college, that I wanted to go abroad to somewhere. Mostly because the Midwest is incredibly boring but also because I'd never lived anywhere else. Travel's all well and good but it's hard to really understand other cultures if you've never tried it out for yourself. I wanted a head start in working globally, which is something Dianne Atkinson beat into my head over the course of INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL ENGINEERING. I never settled on a where, it seemed secondary to the act itself. I'd never been to anywhere south our border, and I wanted to be able to use my fairly competent level of Spanish (go fighting Green Bears!). I heard about the GEARE program early, and it sounded pretty interesting. Two internships with a study abroad included? It sounded too good to be true and, as it turns out, it was. My domestic internship never materialized and I was left at Purdue for a backup research position (albeit a largely positive and possibly career-changing one, but I digress). Anyway, the program had partnerships in Germany, India, China, and Mexico. Tecnologico de Monterrey has a fairly positive reputation as being academically sound, making the Mexico program a natural choice for me. I applied and was accepted a really long time ago and only recently experienced the joys of registering for classes at a foreign institution through a website apparently designed by ill-trained squirrels. Luckily my classes are all in place, although as far as I can tell I'll be taking two technical courses in Spanish, which I'm frankly a touch afraid of. As I fly over the southern U.S. States, I'm preparing for several hundred little unknowns which will hopefully all work out. Am I in the right classes? Will I be able to survive on my own? Will I find people to hang out with? Will there really be representatives from the university to pick people up? Did I really need a VISA? I suppose I'll find out soon enough. Right now I've got airline cookies to enjoy.

Followup: Dunno, probably, yes, yes but with a two hour wait, and no!