Today’s Project 100 memory comes from Michael DeMarco.  Michael was born in Camden and grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey.  His father was a marketing executive, and his mother was a homemaker.  He has a younger brother who works for the Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C.  He went to the public schools in Haddonfield and graduated from Haddonfield Memorial High School in 2000.  After graduating with a history major in May of 2004, he completed his student teaching in the Fall of 2004 at Eastern Regional High School.  Shortly thereafter, he then got a job at Middle Township Middle School in Cape May Courthouse teaching history and special education.  Living through the winter on a barrier island was quite an experience, but Michael decided it was time for a change in scenery.  He moved to Boston in late summer 2007 after landing a job teaching history and special education at Brookline High School.  After another year of teaching, he reconsidered the field as a long-term career and transitioned to working in financial services at State Street in downtown Boston.  He ended up earning a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Boston University.  After graduating BU in 2012, he got a job in the insurance industry.  After twelve years, he still works in the field. Today, he is a Senior Underwriter for AXA XL, a reinsurance company that provides property coverage for high-risk commercial buildings.  Editor’s Note:  One of the longer memories in this series, Michael’s semester abroad was a powerful period for him, and he reached out to his fellow students to help him complete this recollection.

*****

Rowan was where I started to understand the value of education not just for its ability to help obtain a certain end objective, but for the value of learning itself, and for the ability to think critically.  I had small classes and professors who pushed and challenged us.  Dr. Heinzen was particularly influential to me as I had him that first semester in the fall of 2000.  While I had a great experience in all four years, my Spring 2003 semester abroad in Costa Rica stands out.

The decision to study abroad was a process.  Initially I attended meetings with Dr. Applebaum, who was a strong advocate and spoke about the value of studying abroad.  At first, I didn’t see myself doing it as I didn’t want to step outside of the Rowan and the South Jersey comfort zone.  In 2002, Dr. Kress’s Latin American history class and his passion and personal stories from that often-overlooked part of the world peaked my interest.  Dr. Carrigan and Dr. Heinzen both advocated the value of a semester abroad and were not country specific.

At the time it seemed about 80% of students who studied abroad went to Western Europe or Australia--I knew I wanted to go someplace different.  Another key step in the process was reaching out to students who had recently studied abroad to ask candid questions about specific programs.  I decided on Universidad Veritas in San Jose, Costa Rica. 

I didn’t approach the semester abroad as part of my history major.  Instead, a number of factors came together: I was interested in the outdoors, nature, wildlife, and different landscapes.  Program and country cost of living/travel were very reasonable compared to other programs and included a private room, breakfast and dinner Monday-Friday, and weekly laundry.  My decision was a combination of factors mainly between education and idealism, while also being pragmatic. 

In early January 2003 I flew down, connecting through Houston.  A representative of the university picked up a few students at Juan Santamaria Airport and drove me to the house.  Lidieth was my host mom, and Jorge was her 27-year-old son.  It was just the two of them as Jorge’s father was deceased.  That first night I said “hi,” dropped my suitcase off inside the living room, and Jorge and I took the family dog, Judas, a Rottweiler for a walk.  It all of a sudden hit me that I had finally arrived and this would be my life for the next few months.  Lidieth and Jorge hosted a number of students over the years and I remember a US map where students added pins corresponding to their hometowns.  In a few days we would be joined in the house by Brian Hernandez from Pace University in Manhattan.  I was hesitant of a homestay at first, but I grew to appreciate and understand its importance.   

Jorge would attend gatherings with fellow study abroad students and he would also bring his own Tico friends.  He had an old blue Toyota hatchback with a four-speed manual, and that car allowed us to explore beyond the public transit network. 

During the first couple weeks language frustration was common and frequent.  I do remember early on dreaming in Spanish and perhaps it was just a confidence booster, but things did get easier, although all semester, mainly outside of school, there would be times when I didn’t understand what was being said and didn’t know how to say what I wanted.  It was very situational and often I was repeating similar conversations and questions and trying to build on that foundation.  Early on many of us would think something in English and then try to translate it into Spanish in our heads.  We found Spanish easier when just tried to think and speak in Spanish and drop the translation step.

The program at Veritas was intense.  Monday to Friday we had Spanish class from 8:30am-12:30pm.  I tested into Intermediate Spanish I. Classmates ranged from Spanish majors who were essentially fluent to beginners.  We had afternoon elective classes at 2pm that were taught in English.  There were no Friday afternoon classes as that gave us a jump on the weekends to head out of San Jose.  Tropical Ecology class included two weekend field trips to a mangrove swamp and a cloud forest.  These were two of the best trips of that entire semester as they were remote locations with hardly any tourists, and Professor Jorge Campos was our guide.

San Jose was not the Costa Rica one saw in travel and real estate brochures, but there were some really neat places in San Jose to explore.  San Jose served as a great base for learning and traveling.  Throughout the semester it often felt like there were two Costa Ricas --one with daily life for Ticos and one for foreign travelers on vacations. 

Each weekend we had a wide variety of travel choices: The Pacific, The Caribbean, rain forests, mountains, volcanoes, and natural hot springs.  We started with a few university-run excursions.  After those trips, we branched out, planned, and booked our own travel, and travel groups got smaller and smaller.  I made three trips to Nicaragua and went to San Juan Del Sur and Granada.  Poverty was extreme in Nicaragua.  I remember seeing homes built of corrugated metal with people carrying water in plastic white buckets.  Later in the semester, a friend and I took an 18-hour overnight Tica Bus ride to Panama City, which was the most North Americanized capital of Latin America.  And some weekends we just relaxed in San Jose and skipped the long and winding bus rides through the mountains.

I remember watching the start of the Iraq War at Bar Pescadito in San Jose.  Pescadito was kind of like our informal classroom.  It was a corner bar that was collection of study abroad students from Veritas and local Ticos.  Some of the locals liked to practice their English with us while others always spoke in Spanish.  Another event that really stands out was waking up in La Fortuna on a weekend morning and seeing a local newspaper with the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on the front page.    

As the semester went on it was very rewarding to see our Spanish progress and to get through entire days and trips mainly speaking Spanish.  A second language was very challenging and it pushed us to grow. 

That semester changed not only my life but that of my classmates as well.  All these years later, I still talk to and see some of the people that I met that semester. 

In March of 2023, I visited Costa Rica for week and got to eat dinner with Jorge and we met his wife.  He still lives in the same house; I got to tour it, see my old room, and yes, the map with the pin I placed there 20 years ago is still there.  I learned so much by living with a host family.  At the time I knew the semester abroad was special, but I didn’t know how it would pop back up in my life over the coming years.

It was a unique opportunity to grow in many ways, and it can never again be replicated.  Sure, we can take trips now that can even include guided portions, but I realized that travel is only part of a semester abroad.  While we might have visited some of the same locations from my semester abroad, it was in no way similar and was a totally different experience.  As time has passed, I have gained a greater appreciate of just how unique and valuable that opportunity was and of how narrow a window there was to experience it.   

*****

This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100,” the collection and sharing of one hundred memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff in celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.  Thanks to Laurie Lahey for helping proofread and edit the final versions.  Email carrigan@rowan.edu with questions or corrections.  You can find the Link to all of the Project 100 entries on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_highlights/project_100/