Life brings with it a lot of opportunities. Sometimes, only one person in a family is chosen to have those opportunities. The most important thing is that the chosen person needs to know how to make the most of them in their own opportunities, like me. I’m from Puerto Rico and experience recently one of the best opportunities that God could give to me. I spent two weeks in State College, PA working on a newspaper for the Multicultural High School Journalism Workshop at Penn State.

     When I decided to come to this workshop, I never thought that I would learn so much in two weeks. Some of the new experiences were   a challenge, because I entered the U.S. without family and friends. I would be in another country where they do not speak Spanish, my official language. The most important and troubling thing for me was that I was going to Penn State to write for a newspaper. I was going to be a real journalist. My comfort ability with English and my ability to write in English had me worried.

     But to my surprise, things were not as difficult as I originally expected. First, when I arrived at State College, all the things were very exciting but completely different from Puerto Rico.

     For me, State College was like another world, where I was going to live, learn and see another culture. But with all these obstacles in front of me, I persevered. The most important thing was that I could share, communicate and learn with each of my classmates.

     I thank God for giving me this unexpected opportunity, because I could not only learn many things about journalism, but could also experience another part of the United States. I now know that no matter what country, no matter the culture, and no matter the language, high school students are all the same.