Learning Essay

FINAL LEARNING ESSAY

I had the chance to take a weekend class before so I was very excited because in the first one I had a lot of fun and learned a bunch of things. The first class was very productive because for the first time I had the opportunity to hear Americans from different ages answering to the same questions some classmates made. It was very interesting to ask them some questionsand to hear their different points of view, their beliefs, customs and somehow their backgrounds. I was surprised at how easy going they were and how nice they were and that they actually volunteered to go that day and share some of their time with us. Every guest was very clear about their answers I did notice that one of them was brought up in a different environment; I know he mentioned it butyou could tell he grew up in the country side at the moment he told us about his childhood. Thanks to this experience I have a wider idea about Americans between 16 – 28 years old I kind of know what their expectations might be and what they are up to, so if I meet someone between those ages I will have an idea of what can I ask or talk about. Well I will be leaving the US in a month but I will tryto make a new friend before traveling and my plan would be maybe in trying to talk to someone in a coffee shop or anywhere I go just some quick chat that might work since I have ever done it.
The lesson on US Government and Comparative Politics was very interesting because I never heard about American politics facts that left big marks in the history of this country, I got to learn about somepresidents and how the duties of the government go. The things that I won’t forget are that the constitution is considered as ‘’ the bible of the government’’ and that seven of its articles give power to the federal government. Another thing that really caught my attention was that the Constitution has been amended 7 times. If we talk about similarities between US’s and Colombia’s government, I’d saywe have the sort of the same political system and we also have a constitution; but there are some big differences as well; one of them is that in the US the death penalty is implemented as way to punish certain crime. In my country that does not exist at all, sometimes I would like it to be a part of the way to make the people that commit the most horrible crimes to pay for it because we have hadreally bad happenings going on and most of the time the criminals get away with it.
Getting to know and learn about US celebrations and ritual was really interesting and fun to me, because that’s one of the main reasons I decided to be an Au pair, I wanted to come here and learn about the American culture and all what comes with it, therefore this topic was really rewarding to learn about. Iloved learning about the different rites and I will not forget that there are three of them, Rites of Season, Rites of Unity and Rites of Passage. I won’t forget that they are linked to all what happens in our lives and that they are connected also to what we do or happens in our daily living. I would say in my country we don’t have as much celebrations as Americans do, we celebrate Christmas but ithas a religious meaning it is not about the presents, I mean it is aimed to the kids. I noticed here that presents is one of the most important things during Christmas. We also celebrate birthdays as well and I’d say is a little bit different, we don’t celebrate St Patrick’s or Thanksgiving. We do celebrate New Years but is more of a familiar thing; we have an earlier dinner then we just hang outuntil is 12 am and then hug each other wishing one to another a Happy New Year, it is very emotional for me because in that moment I remember every little thing good and bad that was a part of my life in the past year and it just makes me cry a lot. Here is different, well I did not celebrate it with my host family I just went out to party with my friends so it was nothing special to me. We...