Education System in Ecuador

Here is the last question that I have to answer for my study abroad assignment. How is the education system you are experiencing different from what you are accustomed to in the U.S.? From your perspective as a student in the U.S. how is it beneficial and disadvantageous? Consider the perspective of your host-country’s students, how is it beneficial to them? Is it unfavorable to them in any way?

The education system in Ecuador is quite different from the system in the United States. The first thing that I noticed about the University in Ecuador is that there are no dorms on campus. This gives the university a feeling that is very similar to that of high school. The students don’t really hang out on campus when they don’t have class, and there is nothing to do on campus after around five in the afternoon. Classes here are also much more relaxed than classes in the U.S. it is quite common that the teacher is five or ten minutes late some days and they don’t even think anything of it. If students don’t have their homework one day they just turn it in the next day without any problems.
From my perspective as a student in the U.S. it seems quite odd that the teachers are not necessarily held accountable to be to class on time and it seems like sometimes they don’t really take the classes that seriously. From what I can see it is advantageous because the culture here is much more laid back and if teachers were to be really strict on things like the time of class and exactly when homework is done a lot of Ecuadorian students would have lots of problems with that. This seems unfavorable to the students because the professors are not giving it everything that they have; they are just doing the bare minimum that is required of their jobs. It does not seem like the professors are passionate about what they are teaching.
With the new constitution of Ecuador there have been new laws passed that have started to regulate the teachers and professors in Ecuador. One of the regulations is that the teachers and professors need to pass a test that is going to hold them accountable for actually having knowledge about what they are teaching. Many of the teachers and professors are upset about this because many of them if they took the test right now would not pass because they have not been keeping up on their knowledge and have just been doing the bare minimum.

Study Abroad Assignment

I am going to be answering this question for my study abroad assignment

What did you assume before you left that you are not finding in your host-country, host-culture and/or host family and friends? Why did you make those assumptions?

Before I got to Ecuador I was told not to have any expectations about my experience, but of course that is nearly impossible to do. I knew that I was going to be living in the capital city but I did not realize that it was going to be so huge and modern. I expected it to me more like when I visited Nicaragua and all the roads were dirt and everyone lived in really tiny houses or shacks. Quito is quite different than that. There are huge malls that are just like the malls in the US and Supercine is a brand new movie theatre that is nicer than most in the US. I was also expecting everyone to be really conservative and I have found that is true only to a certain point. My host parents were both married before to other people and they got divorced and married each other. I expected the culture to be super Catholic and not support divorce but it seems quite usual. I know that other people on my program have parents who have also been divorced. The other thing that I assumed about Ecuador was that everything would be really cheap and what I have found is that certain things are really cheap and other things are really expensive. The things that are really expensive here are technology which makes sense and clothes which to me makes absolutely no sense what so ever. What I have been told is that it is because most of the clothes are imported and have a really heavy tax on them, but it still does not explain why all clothes are super pricey.

I think the reason that I had all these ideas was because I visited Nicaragua and that was the impression that I got from them. But I am not sure why I transferred it over to Ecuador because when I stayed in Nicaragua we were in the country almost the whole time and I knew that here I would be staying in the city, but somehow I just pictured living in the country I am not really sure why. I had also been told that South America was very Catholic and I guess my perception of Catholicism in the US is that it is super conservative and I guess that perception just transferred over to Ecuador as well. Also I had been told that things were really cheap in Ecuador and I did not think to ask if it was everything or just some things.

This blog entry is a long one because I have to write over 300 words for my study abroad program but this should be pretty easy I have lots to write about :)

This last weekend we decided to go on a trip to the town of Baños which is a small tourist town about three and a half hours outside of Quito. I was a little nervous because this was our first trip outside of Quito without it being planned by our program. It was actually really easy we went to the bus station and got our tickets. It still blows my mind that everything is so cheap, for a one way ticket we each payed only $3.50 which is super cheap. When we got to Baños it was around 2:30 so we ate lunch and went on a hike. The hike took us up the side of a mountain that was right under Volcán Tungurahua the hike was beautiful and we were able to see the whole town of Baños from the mountain. We were not able to do the whole hike unfortunately because we did not have enough daylight, but the part we did was spectacular. The next morning we got up bright and early to go white water rafting. I have decided that this is pretty much my favorite sport it is so fun. The river we went through was class III and IV rapids so it was pretty wild at parts. About halfway through the rafting we stopped to take a break and we left the boats on shore and went swimming in another river that fed into the bigger one. To get to the part we were swimming in we had to go right through the middle of a Baptism that was happeneing. I felt really bad but the guides did not seem to think it was a problem so there was not much we could do about it. We ended up swimming in a little pool at the bottom of a waterfall. It was so pretty. The other funny thing that happened was that we were in the middle of some class III rapids and our guide asked if we wanted to go swimming so I was like sure why not? And goes alright get in so we all jumped in and held onto the raft while we went through class III rapids it was crazy.
After rafting we went back and rented bicycles to go bicycling la ruta de las cascadas or the route of the waterfalls. We biked to probably 10 or so water falls and were able to hike down to one of them and stand underneath it. At one point it started raining a little bit on our ride and we came around a corner and spanning the valley was a double rainbow, it was pretty much out of a fairytale.
Sunday we got up and went Canyoning which is rappelling down waterfalls. I was kind of scary but absolutely beautiful at the same time. I was really sad that I did not have my camera but oh well it was a great experience.