Office of Study Abroad

Profile: Saul Goldstein '23

Saul Goldstein

Major/minor: Studio Art and Film, Television and Interactive Media with a Psychology minor

Study abroad program: Galapagos Academic Institute for the Arts and Sciences (IES), Spring 2022

Reason you chose this program: I really wanted to be in nature and in the sun! And by the ocean!

Favorite class: Political Ecology — we learned about the concept of extractivism and how it impacts Indigenous communities in Ecuador and the world at large.

How did you incorporate your Brandeis areas of study into your study abroad experience? To be quite honest, this program was super different from my studies here at Brandeis because it was an environmental studies program! So it was definitely new to me regarding my prior studies!

Housing situation: Homestay

What were some parts of your identity that you thought about while considering study abroad that other students may want to talk to you about? I have a bunch of dietary restrictions (gluten-free, vegetarian, dairy-free), so I definitely wondered how that would be abroad — it ended up totally working out, and my host family was super accommodating!

I also wondered what Queerness would look like in the Galapagos — as it turns out (and as was expected), there is no prominent queer community on the island I lived on, San Cristobal. While this was somewhat tough at times, it was overall okay.

Since this was an environmental studies program and I'm more of an art/humanities student, I also definitely wondered what it would be like to be surrounded by science-related majors. It actually happened to be that my track in the program, People, Politics, and the Environment, had a ton of non-science majors, too! I definitely didn't feel as out of place as I thought I might have felt beforehand.

Favorite memory: Waking up early before class to make breakfast with my host mom and learn her go-to recipes, including maduros fritos, tortillas de maiz, tortillas de papas and a bunch of others!

Greatest challenge: It was a little tough at times living in a place without a prominent Queer community, but overall it was definitely fine!

What you know now that you didn't know before: How to surf (kind of)!

Fact about your host country that you think people would be surprised to learn: Four of the Galapagos Islands are inhabited, the largest with about 18,000 residents and the smallest with about 150 residents!