Angelina Tomassini frantically rushes into her 8:00 am class on a Tuesday morning prepared to take her engineering exam. She sits beside a familiar face, Kylee Munitz, her engineering classmate from home and roommate abroad, surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar Spanish students. Just as the exam is about to begin, Tomassini pulls out her pencil and calculator.
The clock strikes 8:00 and Tomassini’s professor reminds the class that they must use a pen on the exam and a specific calculator. Tomassini goes into a panic, she has the wrong type of calculator and no pens. Tomassini’s professor emphasizes he has no extra calculators, heightening her anxiety as she is forced to endure the exam calculator-less, a foreign concept to her. Munitz notices Tomassini’s anxiety and passes her an extra pen from her purse, another practice she is not used to while taking her engineering exams back at home.
“I tend to make lots of mistakes on these highly difficult problems and I struggled to complete the whole thing in pen,” Tomassini said. “In the middle of the exam I was hearing noises and I turned my head to see all the Spanish students with their Wite-Out to fix their mistakes. These little things would have been very helpful to know and I am happy to know now for my future exams.”
While many study abroad students’ worst nightmare is having an unusual class size compared to their home university, Tomassini is faced with adjusting to different types of calculators and a language barrier within her engineering classes.
For many study abroad students, their experiences in the classroom have highlighted the immense differences between the learning systems in the U.S. and abroad. But Angelina Tomassini, an engineering student from the University of Michigan, has noticed a stark difference between Michigan engineering and Spanish engineering class etiquette. Tomassini, known as Ang to her friends, has been challenged with a large workload and exams, while simultaneously experiencing weekend travel: an unconventional experience for study abroad students with other majors.
Being an engineering student takes a whole new meaning while being abroad.
Tomassini is pursuing biomedical engineering with a business and international minor for engineers and is defying the typical engineering path by choosing to study abroad. She is set to go into consulting on operations for life science companies and hospital or pharmacy operations.
Originally, when Tomassini decided to focus on studying engineering she never thought abroad would be an opportunity for her, a reality most engineering students face.
“When I first chose an engineering degree, most people informed me that the difficulty of the classes and the strict curriculum I have to follow would prevent me from having the same opportunities as others like studying abroad,” said Tomassini. “I am so lucky that Michigan has such a great program to ensure engineers can study abroad if they want to.”
It is safe to say that Tomassini has endured a lot of cultural shocks while studying engineering abroad, starting from the type of teaching style to the diversity of classmates that surround her.
“There is definitely a culture shock when it comes to the engineering courses. They give no homework and our entire grade is made up of our grades from 2 exams,” Tomassini highlights. “In Michigan, the only way to prepare for exams is by doing lots of practice problems and going to office hours to help complete your homework. Here, I walk into my exams completely blind and not knowing what types of problems to expect.”
Not only has the teaching style of engineering classes in Madrid affected Tomassini’s learning, but the types of students surrounding her have also impacted her engineering experience, highlighting how culturally different success can look.
“Being in classes with Spanish students is definitely different,” emphasizes Tomassini. “They are all kind to us, but frequently ask questions in Spanish to which the teacher answers in Spanish. I do not believe they are doing it on purpose as Spanish is their first language, but hearing other people’s questions is often extremely beneficial to my learning. Also, it is definitely strange because everyone is just trying to pass as they do not have GPAs here. At home, everyone is competing to edge out each other for an A, so I definitely feel a less competitive environment.”
Although, the abroad grading environment doesn’t affect Tomassini’s efforts to succeed and grow as an engineering student. “Ang is very determined and organized,” Munitz highlights. “She’s really good at taking in a lot of complex information and breaking it down in a way she understands. She picks up on concepts quickly and excels, especially in engineering classes. She studies hard for exams no matter if we are flying home from a trip the day before and her grades show that.”
Being abroad has not stopped Tomassini from constantly challenging herself within her engineering classes. “She’s super collaborative and likes to work with others, she constantly challenginges herself to work with the Spanish students in our classes, which is a great quality to have as an engineer because it requires a lot of teamwork,” Munitz said.
Another one of Tomassini’s roommates and classmate, Audrey Lee highlights that “there was a challenging learning curve in applying my prior engineering knowledge from the U.S. to the methods used here in Spain, yet Ang still thrives within this new environment.”
“It was interesting to see the perspectives Spanish engineering students brought from their other classes and how that shaped our class discussions,” Lee said. “Ang is one of the first ones to continuously dive into these discussions and raise her hand, which inspires me to participate and really jump into the new engineering experience we are getting, which I think really shows Ang’s character as a person and it expands beyond the classroom.”
Ellie Grehan, another classmate of Tomassini’s, remarks, “Studying abroad has been so cool as an engineer, especially seeing the ways student/professor dynamics are different, and Ang has been the perfect roommate to explore the world through an engineering perspective with.”
Tomassini’s friends do not fail to emphasize that no matter how determined and driven she is, she still never will be one to turn down fun and prioritize balance. “One night Angelina spontaneously signed us all up for a flamenco dancing class, which we were all extremely terrified about,” Grehan said. “But it ended up being one of the most fun nights we’ve had abroad yet. We met so many amazing new friends and the room was filled with endless laughter, which we would not have experienced if it weren’t for Ang challenging us to step outside of our comfort zone.”
