Riley Moss - IUHPFL - Leon, Spain

My name is Riley Moss and I am a junior at New Palestine High School. I have recently been ACCEPTED into Indiana University’s Honors Program for Foreign Language (IUHPFL) study abroad program in León, Spain and I need your help to get there!

I will be traveling to Spain this Summer (2019) for 6 weeks. While I am there, I will be attending classes for four to five hours a day, completing compositions, projects and daily assignments, going on excursions and learning and experiencing the Spanish culture. I will receive feedback from my instructors intermittently throughout the program. Instructors provide formal evaluations in each class as well as other aspects of the program experience at regular intervals. I will receive a copy of the final evaluation in early fall after the program is completed. My high school also receives a copy of the evaluation for their records. This program is an immersive program which means that I will be required to do everything in Spanish the entire time I am there.

As you can probably assume, this will be an expensive trip and I am trying to do my best in finding ways to help with the financial aspect of this program. Absolutely anything you can give to help me and my parents is greatly appreciated, whether it is big, small, or even just sharing this post with others. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and I can’t wait to extend my knowledge on the language and culture!

Thank you so much for helping make this experience possible!

More Info and Some Background:

I began by taking a Spanish 1 class when I was a freshman in high school and immediately fell in love with it. It just happened to have clicked for me and ever since then I continue to want to improve my skills and learn new things about the language and the culture. I am in D.C. Spanish 3 currently and I have been lucky enough to have some amazing teachers help me along the way. So, when my mom told me about this opportunity, I did a bunch of research on it and thought it was absolutely perfect for me. I started my application as soon as I had all the requirements for the program and began the application process as soon as it opened. I had to have four appraisals done by different people: one by a parent, one by my current language teacher, another teacher (that couldn’t be a past language teacher), and a non-academic adult. I also had to fill one out for myself and complete a writing sample in the target language, which was Spanish for me… obviously.

I plan on using Spanish for the rest of my life. I would like to double major in college in Spanish and a Pre-Vet option and this trip will greatly improve my speaking and comprehensive skills. I absolutely love working with animals and I love working with people, so at the moment, becoming a Veterinarian is what I would really like to do and being able to speak fluent Spanish will not only help me but I also want to be able to help fluent Spanish speakers who may not be as fluent in English.

For even more information on this trip, visit: https://iuhpfl.indiana.edu/