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Ieisha Patterson

Bio Summary
Cohort Year: 
2011
Home Institution: 
Lincoln University
Heinz Programming Area: 
Arts & Culture
Study Abroad Country: 
Spain
International Experience

Ieisha Patterson studied in Seville, Spain during the summer of 2011.  It was her first time outside of the country and an unbelievable experience.  While in Spain, Ieisha lived with a host family and attended school five days a week.  She took a course in the language and another in the culture, all completely in Spanish.  Along with other American students from various states, Ieisha experienced the life of the average Spaniard.  She travelled to the banks, used the public library, shopped at the malls, and spoke with the country’s residents.  Ieisha felt remarkably comfortable in the Spanish culture; mainly because it so closely resembled American culture.  The people were approachable and often very helpful when they detected that Ieisha did not fully understand something.  Towards the end of her study abroad experience, Ieisha even travelled to Morocco for a weekend to better understand Spanish culture.  There is a heavy Arabic influence in Spain, mainly because the Moors ruled Spain for 500 years early in its history.  Ieisha found that fact interesting and wanted to experience that country for herself.  She learned many new things and grew into an even better person as a result.   For example, she found that no matter what language you speak, you will always find amazing, kind-hearted people.  She was able to fully appreciate this due to her host family who truly brightened up her days in Spain.  Ieisha hopes to return to Spain soon to visit them!

Community Engagement Experience

Our CEE final project was about drug trafficking.  The event was scheduled for Wednesday January 11, 2012 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm in our student union building’s multipurpose room.  Prior to our event, we knew what we wanted to do and had our program participants confirmed.  We knew what we wanted to do and had our helpers confirmed.  We had a guest speaker, Officer Thompson, a public safety officer at Lincoln University, and two foreign language professors who led round table discussions.  They included Dr. Maria Charle Poza, Chair of the Foreign Language Department, and Ms. Hilda Ricardi, a Fulbright language assistant.  The day before the event, my CEE team and I went along with our coordinator Ms. Lundy to go shopping for the ingredients we needed for the cultural food we planned to prepare for our event.  For Spain I decided to cook “paella con pollo” and to make my version of mock Sangria. Latoya and Quandalasha decided to cook “gayo pinto” and made “tres leche” in honor of Costa Rica.  Tyisha provided tortilla chips and different dips such as guacamole and bean dip.  Our order of events included our guest speaker, then as members of the team, we discussed drug trafficking in our selective countries and our experiences with it.  For this we used a Power Point presentation.  Following that, we broke up in two groups for round table discussions with four questions each.  Then we played a mini jeopardy game which reflected information in the brochures that we had given out.  Finally, we served our countries’ dishes. 

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