Living in NYC

During the spring term of 2018 I had the opportunity to study abroad at New York University (NYU) for a whole semester through the Hurricane Maria Assistance Program (HMAP). The HMAP program served to help those students whose institutions had been damaged by Hurricane Maria by giving them a semester at NYU free of charge. We were given free tuition, free meals, a free dorm, and credit for buying school and home supplies. The only thing we had to pay for was our flight tickets. It was thanks to this awesome opportunity that I got to live in New York City for a whole semester.

To say the truth I was really nervous about moving to New York. It was going to be the first time ever that I was going to be living on my own, with no parents to call if I needed anything. Still, I was really excited for this new chapter in my life. Also, I knew that a large group of people from Puerto Rico was going to join me in this journey so that gave me peace.

As part of the degree that I was pursuing in Puerto Rico, I had to take a least fifteen credits, but since the opportunity was unique, and I didn’t know if I would ever go back to NYU, I decided to take eighteen credits. Some of them were just for fun, some I needed for my degree. The classes I took were:

• Film, a transformative process, a vision beyond technology: This class was made to appreciate the art behind cinema and to not focus too much on the technical aspects of film.
• Intro to Theater Production: This class besides teaching me the origin of theater, that dates back towards the beginning of Indian culture, also taught me the different technical aspects that are put in towards producing a show or play.
• Photography I: This class taught me how to use an analog camera and how to make film pictures come to life.
• Beginner Ballet: It was a ballet class designed for vocal performance artists.
• Beginner Tap: It was a tap class designed for dance education students.
• Civil Rights Through the Documentary Lens: This class taught me how the civil rights movement came to happen in the United States of America. All of it we learned watching documentaries that had recorded history.

It is safe to say it was one of my hardest semesters ever when it came to schoolwork. Still, to this day it has been my best semester ever. Sure, it was a lot of hard work, but I also had a lot of fun and met tons of cool people. I went to see lots of great shows, ate amazing food, got the opportunity to work on actual theatrical productions, saw landmarks that you only see in movies (the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Times Square, the Flat Iron Building, etc.), and overall just got the opportunity to live and breath in the city that never sleeps.

Like I said before, this semester was awesome. Sure, there were sometimes that a lot of crazy things happened (New York City can be dangerous and scary sometimes), but the experiences you get there are unparalleled to the ones you can get anywhere else. I can’t wait to be there once again.