A UA professor and students in the University’s School of Social Work recently completed an interim travel course in Mexico. Ellen Csikai took students to Cuernavaca, Buena Vista de Cuellar and Mexico City in her SW 457-557 class.

Students went on the trip for two weeks starting May 10. Through living with host families and attending classes and lectures, they learned about the cultural differences in social service in Mexico.

The students paid $1900 plus the cost of airfare for the 3-hour class. Through the experience, they were able to bring knowledge about other social workers back to the United States.

After visiting the other agencies and attending lectures on culture, traditional life and medicine, they were able to visit historical and cultural sites in and around the cities.

Matthew Cuellar, a junior majoring in social work, is one of the students who went on the trip.

“I took the class as a social work elective and an opportunity to work on my Spanish,” Cuellar said.

He also said that what made this class and trip memorable was the way the class learned about the healthcare system and government of Mexico. By visiting social service centers in rural and urban settings in Mexico, he said, the group was able to get an unbiased view of what social work is like in another country.

“The one thing that I walked away with from Mexico was the ability to understand the patience that comes with the study of another culture, and the respect in all aspects needed for accurate research to be applied to study upon return to the United States,” Cuellar said.

He said some of his most memorable moments were visiting the cultural sites in Mexico.

“My absolute favorite part of the trip not affiliated with the class was the group’s visit to Teotheucan on May 16,” he said. “After studying about this historical site all semester in anthropology I was more than excited and plenty satisfied with our visit there.”