Volunteer Work

Two years ago I moved to America as an exchange student and before moving back to Portugal I applied to Georgia Perimeter College and got accepted; I have been living in America since then. United States and Portugal are two really different cultures in many things but one aspect caught my attention: the value that people give to volunteer work. In Portugal, the words "volunteer work" are only a words that only a few people actually know the meaning. In America the concept "volunteer work" is actually part of the society's mentality. A huge number of people do volunteer work everyday, all in order to achieve self accomplishment. Furthermore, others big institutions like Universities are beginning to put a certain amount of hours of volunteer work as a requisite to be accepted in the University.
It was due to academic reasons that I stated to do volunteer work. I do volunteer work for an institution called Canine Assistant, which trains dogs to help handicap people in wheelchairs. At first I was only doing it because I knew it would help me in my academic future. However, after a few afternoons of volunteer work, my mind changed completely. Not only I started to have a lot of fun but I started to feel good and specially happy because I am helping people that need it. I also started to get motivation from looking at those people that have very busy lives and still work as hard as they can to help as much as possible. I feel that I am a much different person now than I was before coming to America, more open-minded and more aware of what is really important in life. I think that the American mentality about volunteer work, is the correct mentality because it influences people to try volunteer work. Most people that try volunteer work and experience that feeling of accomplishment that it gives you, keep doing volunteer work for the rest of their lives. Hopefully one day, this mentality of doing volunteer work will get to Portugal, which would be an amazing thing because everyone would benefit from it.

Living in a Foreign Country

To leave the country where I was born and move to America was probably the best and the most tough experience in my life. I came to United States two years ago as an exchange student, which means I started to live with a family that I have never met before. The greatest obstacle that I faced was probably the language barrier because it made really hard all the aspects in the adaptation to America. I could not make friends because nobody could understand me and I could not understand anyone. So, without friends and far away from all my family I felt very lonely. The classes were really hard because not only I had to study extra hard to make up for my lack of fluency in English but I misunderstood countless information from the teachers like the date of the testes, or the topic of the paper for homework. Adding this to the fact that I had to adapt to a new culture, made the situation the biggest obstacle in my life. However, after that adaptation to the culture was done and I got more fluent in English, the decision of coming to United States turned up to be the best decision in my life. I fell like I grew up a lot and became more responsible, ambitious and dedicated. I started to pursue and work hard to get what I want instead of letting the things that I want pass by. Even though it was tough at the beginning, all the things that I got from moving to United States make the experience completely worth it. So, if you have the chance to move to another country do not let it pass by, do everything you can to grab that change. Even though in the short-run it will be though, in the long-run it will be completely worth it.