2018 - 2019
MARCO POLO FUND
Study / Traineeship report
This form needs to be completed by every student who has received a scholarship from the Marco Polo Fund.
Last name*Please write your name as shown in your passport Moreno Vela
First name*Please write your name as shown in your passport Laura
RUG registration number (S) S2883880
Please enclose a 2 page report on your experiences abroad, using the following headings: 1. Your study programme or your internship programme
2. Language
3. Finance and other conditions
4. Preparation and contacts with the faculty before, during and after your stay 5. Housing
6. Culture 7. Free time 8. Travelling 9. Other
I hereby give permission to the International Office to publish my report on Study Info to inform future students
X Yes No Future students may contact me for additional
information X Yes No Signature Participant ……… Date: 05/01/2019
1 Your study programme or your internship programme
I studied International Relations at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) during the autumn period of 2018-2019. The courses I took were África, Problemáticas Contemporáneas de África, Problemas Ambientales, Medio Oriente and Centroamérica: Migración, DDHH y Género.
Language
The language of all my courses and daily life was Spanish.
Finance and other conditions
Mexico in general is really cheap compared to Europe and the Netherlands. This is not only because stuff is cheaper but also because their coin, the Mexican peso, is lower in comparison to the euro. At this moment is around 21 pesos for 1 euro.
Puebla is also really cheap in a lot of terms: public transportation, housing, food, going out…etc.
As an advice, still look after your expenses; because everything is so cheap you can easily over spend.
Preparation and contacts with the faculty before, during and after your stay
Contact is a little bit slow, specially at the beginning. Once you get there, you will be assigned to a tutor. Contact in buap with professors and tutors is really close, so he or she will probably give you his/her personal number which makes communication a lot easier. Feel free to ask them anything, they are really willing to help but I recommend you to go after whatever you demand or ask them cause I can tend to take longer than needed or expected.
Housing
There are a lot of options. From private rooms in a apartment to student houses. The housing is cheaper compared to Groningen. If you prefer private rooms you can find them on different facebook groups but watch out for scams. However, if you go for international student housing I recommend you pueblahousing or siseñor housing. They both have webpages. I went to casa mansion which is part of si señor housing, if you have further question on this, don’t hesitate in contacting me and I can further elaborate
I really recommend you this last option, it’s a bit more expensive than private housing but the community of exchange students is amazing. They are people going through the same experience as you and you will always find someone to hang out with.
Culture
I love Mexican culture. They are just great people and warm. I felt really welcomed from the beginning. For instance, I was one of the few people that were on exchange in most of my courses and in some of them, I was even the only one. My classmates always approached me, invite me to hang out after class and I always had someone to work with when it came to group projects. They made me feel really at home.
Free time
You can dedicate your free time to a lot of different things. BUAP has an extensive sport facility where you can practice a lot of diverse sports. Moreover, Puebla city has multiple museums
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which I recommend you visit such as El Museo Amparo. I spent a lot of my time just walking around Puebla, some of my favorite spots were ‘El Barrio del Artista’, ‘Los fuertes de Guadalupe’, square ‘Los Sapos’ and ‘El Zócalo’, but there are many more.
Also, there are a lot of clubs and pubs in Puebla and in another town called Cholula. You should try the typical drinks such as mezcal, tequila and pulque. Some of the places I recommend you to go are Diente de León, el Nahual or McCarthys. As well, there are many more.
Travelling
Travelling around Mexico is amazing. It can be difficult to visit the entire country as it is huge and distances are very long but I encourage you to visit as many places as possible.
At the beginning, consider joining group trips so you can meet people while you discover a new place. The housing agency si señor organizes trips with your housemates but there are also companies that do the same such as Integrate.
There are multiple Mexican airlines that operate inside Mexico. Besides, there are different bus companies which work pretty well. I recommend you to get your student card as it can provide you with sales in different bus companies as well as in museums, cinemas, ruins…etc.
My favorite places that I visited were the coast of Oaxaca and Chiapas. El Cañón del Sumidero located near San Cristobal de las Casas (Chiapas) is simply breathtaking.
Other
Security is something to bear in mind when you travel to Mexico. By saying this, I do not mean to scare you, nothing serious happened to me, but you should have it in consideration. It should be fine if you just take some precautions such us using uber in stead of taxi (I always used public transport to go to uni so just do not over use uber cause it can end up being quite expensive), do not take your phone out and just bring some spare cash you could give at any time.
I felt completely in love with Puebla and with Mexico. I hope you have the same experience as I did. If you have any question do not hesitate in contacting me either via email at
