User:CourtneyMazzola

My name is Courtney Mazzola and I am a junior at Rutgers University in New Brunswick NJ. I transferred to Rutgers from Ramapo and also changed my major from biology to ecology, evolution, and natural resources. I love traveling and learning about foreign languages and cultures so I take advantage of the opportunities that university education offers. I have studied abroad at Universidad de Pablo Olavide in Sevilla, Spain and have volunteered at the macaw sanctuary in Aranjuez, Costa Rica at El Manantial. This spring I have plans to volunteer abroad in Guatemala and am looking into possibly studying abroad in Brazil next spring. I started out not knowing a single word of Spanish, but through my travel experiences I have become very close to fluent and even learned a few words of Arabic and Portuguese while I was visiting Morocco and Portugal. I can say I have a strong passion for language despite the fact that neither of my parents know more than English. I travel with the idea in mind that I can never allow language to be a barrier. In other words, my lack of knowledge of a language will never stop me from building relationships and connections with people from around the world, I will always challenge myself to learn more. My experiences allow me to understand why language is so important and I would love to learn more. That is mostly why I have registered for this course "Languages in Peril."