Post 10: My experience with english

About my experience learning English at university, I think it has helped me a lot to practice and improve my English grammar and pronunciation. At school I saw and learned almost everything they teach us at FAU, but it helped me to improve and avoid losing the habit and skills I had at school.

I think that blogs are useful to learn how to write properly and use our own words to explain something. Also I think this helps us to have a pause from university and think different things than workshop or even architecture.

Outside the English class, I also got the habit of listening English in the common things that I do, for example in the TV shows or movies that I watch I like to watch them in English with subtitles, because usually that is the original language of the things I like. Now I even watch them without subtitles, because I understand a lot more now, especially if I have already watched that movie.

Sometimes happens that when I am watching for the first time a movie in English, the actors speak so badly that I can’t understand a thing. Of course most of the times they are instructed to do so, but it’s very hard for me to understand.

One thing I think I have to improve about my English is the pronunciation, even in Spanish sometimes I speak wrong! In order of improving my pronunciation I am trying to speak more in English with someone or even alone, and I am trying to convince my parents to learn more English to talk ourselves to learn more.

Video 3: An activity I like to do in my free tim

Post 6: Postgraduate studies

When I think of postgraduate studies I first think that I must finish my career and then think of what I want to do next. Of course, we all need to have plans to the future, and I have, but I also think that those plans can change a lot in time, so maybe in the future I will not be an architect and will be something entirely different, no one knows.

Anyway, I would like to have postgraduate studies in another country, because I like a lot to know different countries and cultures, especially in architecture. I would like to specialize in architectural design because that is what I most like about architecture, the fact that you can use your imagination to create a building.

If I can study postgraduate course in other country, I would like it to be a part-time course, so I can also work to pay my stay in there. Also, I would love to study in Europe, because I think that architecture in there is much more developed than it is here, and there are the best countries to study architecture.

A problem thing about postgraduate studies, especially in other countries at least for me is the cost. Even in here is very expensive to study in a university and even more so if it is in a foreign country.

Post 9: Architecture at FAU

Architecture in Universidad de Chile is a very hardworking career. First of all, in the first year the things they teach us are very abstract in order to understand how to work with shapes and spaces, without thinking about of which material the building is made off, or how much will it cost, or if the structure can hold the weight. Then, in the following semesters we learn how to design more realistic projects. They teach us which materials we could use, how to make a sustainable building, how to design the structure, etc.

From the outside, this career its known as a hardworking one, where a lot of times we don’t sleep at all in order to finish a model or a map, and it is true. From the beginning of the career the workload is so high that while we study we have to forget about our social life for a while. The study consumes all of our time, so we can’t do anything else. But, in spite of that, I think that the solution to this is to be very organized and seize all the time we have.

A thing I would change about the career are the schedules. A lot of classes are at the same time so if we don’t pass a subject we will always have problems with the schedule because some subjects are taught at the same time, so for example if someone doesn’t pass Structure, then in the next semester he can’t take Urbanism because it is thought at the same time that Structure, so he can’t go to both subjects.

One of the big problems of studying at FAU is the quality of the facilities. We don’t have enough classrooms for all of us and we need more working places. We have the library but it’s not enough for all of us. Also the infrastructure is very old and because of that in some places it's falling apart! We need a new building with more classrooms and more working places for all of us.

Post 8: My opinion about some things

What is your opinion about Chilean politicians?

I hear all the time people saying that Chilean politicians are the worst, that they are corrupt and they steal our money by the taxes and they change the law in their own benefit. I think that they are not the thieves and bad people we say they are; I think they are just a normal Chilean person. It’s in our way of life to think about how best to earn more by giving less, or the little changes of the law that we do every day. For example the parent that prints in his office the books that his child needs for school, just for saving a little money taking advantage of the free cost of the office printer. The only difference between the normal Chilean people and the politicians is that they do it in a much bigger scale. 

What is your opinion about women in the military?

I am tired of the sexist topics like: Can women do this or that? It is time to change our way of thinking and start to leave behind all of this discrimination that makes no sense. Personally, this year I managed to understand a lot more about how we (men) have the sexist thinking in our normal life, and especially how this affects women, and this needs to stop. I’m absolutely certain that women can be in the military and can do everything that the men do, because the differences we have are just biological and do not affect our way of life.

What is your opinion about buying instead of adopting pets?

When we are talking about buying pets, I say it is very unnecessary and it shows that people who do that are not interested really in having a pet, they are more into having a beautiful pet or a breed pet, just for showing off. Also I think that there are a lot of people who has pets that can’t keep in their homes, so they publish pictures of them and ask for someone who is looking for a pet to adopt them.

What is your opinion about immigration?

I’d definitely say that immigration it’s a very good thing, because it mixes cultures and makes the city look more alive, it doesn’t matter where they come from. The same way Chilean people that treat badly the immigrants, it’s how European people treat us, the south Americans, I’m sure of this because I have lived in Europe and they are just as bad as a lot of Chilean people. Discrimination exists all around the world and we have to stop this.