Name: Jasmine Soria-Gonzalez

Program: Spring Break 2026 – Topics in Healthcare with Cultural Immersion

Location: Costa Rica

Jazzy’s Spring Break in Costa Rica

I applied to this program on a whim. I wasn’t sure I would get in, I wasn’t sure on how I would fund this trip, and I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy this trip, but now after 10 days in Costa Rica I could not imagine how differently my spring break would have been if I hadn’t decided to go abroad. During our weekly classes before we left I knew one person in my class, and I was super nervous no one would like me or that we wouldn’t get along. In our weekly classes it was pretty quiet, no one cracking jokes or laughing, we were pretty serious and this just made me more nervous for the trip since everyone on this trip was majoring in either nursing, Pre-PA, or pre med. I was the only person on this trip that was studying nothing related to the health field. I am a current double major in marketing and Spanish. I decided to take this trip to help and give back to my latino community. I was nervous I would be out of place or even useless on this trip but it was quite the opposite.

Now upon leaving for Costa rica we had less than an ideal flight time, our flight took off at 5am, meaning that we had to leave from Valpo around 1:30-2am. I thought the best choice of action would be pulling an all nighter however alertly I was the only one with this idea and I would come to face the consequences of not sleeping 24 hours. Once we got in the car I was able to start being my true funny self, I let a nice little joke out just to test the water of the others with us, they laughed, this gave me a huge sense of relief! good they are just as funny as me I thought! Once at the airport everyone started talking a little more, obviously still nervous but starting to warm up to each other. Once we landed in Costa Rica we had to split our group up into 3 groups. We only had one guy on our trip so he was sent to a direct house since there was only 2 bedrooms in the main house (casa Paz y Flor) for the night. We slept like babies. I woke up the next morning feeling like a new person!