{"id":77433,"date":"2026-03-31T06:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=77433"},"modified":"2026-03-31T06:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:51:07","slug":"lumberjacks-abroad-taiwan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/lumberjacks-abroad-taiwan\/","title":{"rendered":"Lumberjacks Abroad: Taiwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abby Shitara put her language knowledge\u00a0to\u00a0the test while studying and living in Taiwan for a year. Through her experience abroad, this finance and comparative cultural studies senior not only learned about her host country but also shared cultural notes with friends she met from all over\u00a0the world. Learn what her favorite\u00a0Taiwanese\u00a0dish was and how this experience opened her eyes to new\u00a0possibilities.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What class(es) or research did you complete while abroad and for how long?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my first semester,\u00a0I took regular classes through my school abroad. I took two Chinese classes, an intensive Chinese learning course and a regular level 2 Chinese class,\u00a0as well as a culture class\u00a0on\u00a0Taiwanese\u00a0cinema. I also\u00a0took\u00a0Buddhist\u00a0art\u00a0and\u00a0global engagement\u00a0classes\u00a0online through NAU. For the second semester, I did a total of 540\u00a0internship\u00a0hours at\u00a0a company in Taiwan as a global sales manager\u2019s assistant\u00a0and took\u00a0a comparative cultural studies\u00a0capstone\u00a0course\u00a0online through NAU.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you fund your study abroad experience?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Living in Taiwan is\u00a0much\u00a0cheaper than living in Flagstaff. I lived off campus for my second semester abroad,\u00a0and my\u00a0rent for\u00a0half a year in Taiwan was equivalent to about one month of rent in Flagstaff.\u00a0Meals\u00a0there were relatively cheaper as well. The scholarship through NAU and federal grants helped a lot during my year abroad. I also\u00a0worked\u00a0and saved money before going abroad and\u00a0received\u00a0support from my family.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Abby<\/a>Where did you study and why did you choose this country for your study abroad program?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I studied abroad at National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan for one year through the\u00a0<\/span>Interdisciplinary Global Program (IGP)<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at NAU. I chose the school because it was recommended by my program and was compatible with my major. I wanted to study Chinese because I thought that learning a new language\u00a0would\u00a0open\u00a0possibilities in my future work options,\u00a0especially with my business degree.\u00a0I was\u00a0also interested\u00a0in\u00a0Taiwanese\u00a0culture and excited to go to a place\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0never\u00a0been to\u00a0before.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What was your\u00a0language-learning\u00a0process? Can you tell us about a humorous language-related situation you encountered?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although I studied Chinese\u00a0at\u00a0NAU before going abroad, Taiwan uses\u00a0the traditional\u00a0style of writing for\u00a0its\u00a0words,\u00a0while I learned the simplified version\u00a0at\u00a0NAU. They also have a mild accent compared to what I was used to. For my case, I chose to take an easier Chinese class to get used to the traditional characters while I was abroad. Other than that,\u00a0I also learned a lot from speaking to the local people and writing down anything new so that I could look back on them later to practice. One situation I had was that the pronunciation of the\u00a0words\u00a0\u201cis\u201d and \u201cfour\u201d\u00a0is\u00a0similar because of the accent,\u00a0and I had trouble telling the difference on some occasions,\u00a0especially\u00a0when\u00a0paying at stores.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Hands<\/a><\/p>\n

Tell us about your favorite\u2014and\/or least favorite\u2014dish abroad.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of my favorite dishes I had in Taiwan was beef noodles. It is a traditional and popular dish in Taiwan,\u00a0and you can find\u00a0it\u00a0almost anywhere. The beef in the soup is very tender,\u00a0and the flavor is good as well. I would go to many beef noodle restaurants with my friend to try out different stores. One regret is that I found my favorite beef noodle shop only about\u00a0two\u00a0months before I had to leave, which I\u00a0wish\u00a0I\u00a0had\u00a0found sooner.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How has this study abroad experience influenced your personal,\u00a0academic\u00a0and career goals? Has it\u00a0opened up\u00a0new possibilities or changed your direction?\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I always wanted to work internationally using my business degree,\u00a0but after experiencing\u00a0study abroad, it became more prominent.\u00a0I feel like the actual experience of studying abroad and experiencing life there and doing an internship abroad lets me gain the feeling of what it actually will be like working and living abroad.\u00a0Communicating to people and experiencing\u00a0the different\u00a0cultures also contribute to that as well. This made me more excited about my possibilities in my\u00a0career,\u00a0and I am currently looking toward\u00a0studying for my\u00a0master\u2019s\u00a0to get closer to my goals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Has this experience changed any of your personal beliefs or values? <\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I did experience many\u00a0different cultures\u00a0and beliefs while studying abroad,\u00a0not only from the local Taiwanese people and their culture, but also\u00a0from\u00a0the other students I met that went to study abroad in Taiwan from different countries. We exchanged our beliefs and cultures in our native countries,\u00a0and I learned a lot from\u00a0the\u00a0friends I made abroad. From this,\u00a0I re-realized that people\u2019s norms and beliefs\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0the same even when they can be similar;\u00a0when\u00a0diving\u00a0deeper, they could be\u00a0very different. After experiencing this, it made me want to\u00a0learn more\u00a0about the\u00a0different ways\u00a0of seeing and taking in various cultures and norms.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abby Shitara put her language knowledge\u00a0to\u00a0the test while studying and living in Taiwan for a year. Through her experience abroad, this finance and comparative cultural studies senior not only learned about her host country but also shared cultural notes with friends she met from all over\u00a0the world. Learn what her favorite\u00a0Taiwanese\u00a0dish was and how this…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":77434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1821,1829],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lumberjacks-abroad","category-student-edition"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}