So What? Now What?

When I first went to Idaho as a high school exchange student, my goal was to adapt. I wanted to communicate in English, make friends, and feel comfortable in a place that was very different from home. At that point, I was focused on the immediate experience of living abroad. Through my time at UF and the International Scholars Program, I have started to understand how that experience connects to my identity, education, and future career.

One of the biggest changes in my perspective is how I understand communication. When my English was limited, I could not always express an idea or show my personality as easily as I could in Portuguese. That experience reminds me that someone’s ability to communicate in a particular language does not tell the whole story of what they know or can contribute. It has made me more patient with people who are finding their voice in an unfamiliar environment.

Soccer in Idaho and beach volleyball at UF taught me another part of communication: shared experiences can create connection before people know each other well. Playing together gave me a reason to interact and a way to contribute. Over time, those interactions helped build friendships. This has shaped how I approach new environments. I have learned that I do not always need to wait until I feel fully comfortable to participate; participation itself can help create that comfort.

At UF, my understanding of cultural identity has also become more thoughtful. BRASA gives me a space to speak Portuguese, connect with Brazilian students, and share experiences that others understand personally. Maintaining those connections has helped me see that adapting to life in the United States and staying connected to Brazil can support each other. My Brazilian background is part of the perspective I bring to conversations, friendships, and professional work.

At the same time, being Brazilian does not mean my experience represents every Brazilian person. My journey has its own circumstances. Recognizing this helps me approach other people with more curiosity. A person’s nationality can provide context, but it cannot replace listening to their individual experiences. This distinction matters in everyday interactions and in marketing, where broad assumptions about an audience can hide meaningful differences.

My work at UFIC has given me a practical way to apply these lessons. I communicate with students and faculty who have different goals, questions, and levels of familiarity with global learning. Creating useful content requires me to consider their perspective. What might be unclear? What information would help them decide? What would make an opportunity feel relevant to them? Those questions have helped me move beyond thinking only about how a message looks and toward thinking about how it is understood.

Advising students on e-portfolios has also changed how I reflect. It is easy to list an experience: attending an event, studying abroad, or joining an organization. Explaining what changed because of it takes more thought. Working with students has reinforced the importance of identifying a specific challenge, describing your response, and explaining what you learned. Building this portfolio requires me to apply the same process to myself.

The IPSA symposium gave me an opportunity to practice that publicly. As a presenter and panelist, I had to connect my own experience with ideas that could help other students. Discussing internationalization and professional development encouraged me to see global learning as something that continues through our choices at UF. It also showed me why reflection matters professionally: an employer cannot automatically know what an international experience taught me. I need to explain that connection clearly.

My AMA role helped me examine cultural understanding through a business lens. The international marketing activity showed how the same brand can require different approaches across countries. For me, the lesson extends beyond choosing different visuals or translating copy. It is about questioning whether we understand the people we are trying to reach. Cultural awareness should lead to better questions and research, rather than confidence based on stereotypes or familiarity with one market.

The World Cup symposium expanded this thinking to the image of a country. The discussion connected sports with tourism, public diplomacy, culture, and international perception. It helped me see how different organizations and interests can influence the way a place is presented to the world. My coursework adds further context by connecting business decisions with economic conditions and environmental issues. Together, these experiences have helped me recognize interdependencies that I might previously have considered separately.

After graduation, I want to apply this perspective in marketing, market research, and strategy. I want to understand the context behind consumer behavior and use evidence to test assumptions. When working with people from different backgrounds, I want to listen carefully, communicate clearly, and remain willing to reconsider my initial interpretation. These are habits I will need to keep practicing.

Personally, I want to continue building connections across cultures while maintaining my relationship with Brazil. I also want to keep improving how I communicate across languages and unfamiliar situations. ISP has helped me recognize that global learning is an ongoing responsibility to stay curious and reflective.

The value of my journey is not simply that I have lived in different places. It is that those experiences have changed how I approach people and decisions. I am leaving this stage of my education with a clearer understanding of my strengths, a better ability to explain them, and a stronger sense of what I still want to learn.