Scholarship winners from Tlaxcala, Mexico visit Ball State

Carlos Flores and Ada Cortes play in the snow on Nov. 17 outside of Bracken Library. They are from southern Mexico and this is their first time seeing snow. DN PHOTO ALAINA JAYE HALSEY
Carlos Flores and Ada Cortes play in the snow on Nov. 17 outside of Bracken Library. They are from southern Mexico and this is their first time seeing snow. DN PHOTO ALAINA JAYE HALSEY

Proyecta 100,000

100,000 Mexican students to study in America

50,000 U.S students to study in Mexico

When a few visiting students from Mexico went to their first Ball State football team practice Sunday, they saw something they had never seen before – snow.

When it started snowing enough to stick, they built their first snowmen and had their first snowball fight.

“It’s something amazing because we’ve never seen it before,” José Sanchez, a student from Universidad Politécnica de Tlaxcala. “We looked like kids, but we didn’t care.”

Forty students, from Universidad Politécnica de Tlaxcala, Instituto Tecnológico de Apizaco and Universidad Tecnológica de Tlaxcala, are visiting Ball State to work on their English and plan come back to study at the university in the future. The students won a scholarship from the Mexican government to come for about three weeks, as a part of Proyecta 100,000.

This project is an attempt to get 100,000 Mexican students to study in the U.S. and 50,000 U.S. students to study in Mexico by 2018, according to the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at University of California, San Diego. The program is complementary to President Barack Obama’s initiative to send 100,000 American students to study at Latin American universities, and for Latin Americans to come study at U.S. universities.

The students are staying in LaFollette Complex at the university for three weeks.

“I was planning to do activities that we have in Indiana that they would never experience over there,” said Daniel Ramos, event coordinator. “That’s the aim.”

They have gone to a Ball State football and basketball game, visited Indianapolis, the Children’s Museum, the Indy 500 museum and Sky Zone. They also have gone to restaurants, the mall and parties around Muncie.

Mariana Montiel, also a student from Universidad Politécnica de Tlaxcala, said she has befriended some Ball State students, and they invited her to go to the mall with them and took her to a few parties. But what she likes most about the university is how many people there are.

“You can meet a lot of people from different countries, so you can talk about food and culture,” Montiel said.

Sanchez said he was surprised everyone was so kind.

“It’s our first time in the U.S. and … in our country, that’s not really that kind of polite,” he said. “We thought there would be racism or discrimination, but not so far.”

He also said the way Ball State is run impressed him.

“I think it’s one of the most impressive universities I’ve seen in my life,” he said. “The class and teachers are really good.”

He said the university seems more like an international school because of all the different ethnicities.

“It’s not just U.S. people,” he said. “There’s Chinese and Africa and Pakistan and Brazil. We never saw so many people from different countries.”

Still, one complaint Sanchez had was from his experience with food.

“In here, they put cheese in everything,” Sanchez said. “The taste of the food is so processed and frozen. We eat more fresh food, and we need spicy food. Your sauce is like water.”

When they went to Taco Bell, Sanchez said he got a taco and asked for spicy sauce to go with it.

“What is this? This is a taco?" he said at the time. “Do you have any spicy sauce? This is like ketchup.”

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