From Portugal to UNH

Leah Schlatter-Sweet is fascinated by Japanese culture, tries to spend time in college woods every day, and loves reading classic literature.

She speaks impeccable English, even though her native country is Portugal.

Sweet is a UNH non-traditional student. She moved United States for the first time in 2007 to attend college at UNH.

Sweet was born in Switzerland and moved six weeks after her birth to Portugal, where she spent the rest of her childhood. She said in her childhood, she was one of the “poor kids” on the island where she lived, so she was grouped with the children who didn’t read or write well. Sweet said she was always at the bottom of her class

However, Sweet’s diligent studying led to an improvement in grades. Soon, Sweet was classified as one of the “rich kids,” where she was able to gain a better education than her former peers.

“Some of my friends’ parents still don’t know how to read or write,” said Sweet. “They live on farms, they farm, that’s what they do. They don’t need to know how to read or write; they have their children to do that for them now.”

When Sweet started applying to colleges in the United States, she applied to a bunch of private schools in hopes of reaping the benefits of financial aid exclusively accessible to international students.

UNH was Sweet’s safety school, which came in handy when she wasn’t accepted to her list of desired private schools. Sweet’s father has family in the US, and she had visited them a couple of times, but had never spent a permanent amount of time here.

Sweet said she came to UNH undeclared in the liberal arts department. In Portugal, she said, a student chooses a focus in the arts, science or literature, and that is what that student studies throughout junior high and high school. If a science student decides their sophomore year that they want to switch from science to arts, they must repeat all of their high schooling over again. Therefore, when Sweet came to school at UNH, having graduated in Portugal with a high school science focus, she was relieved to be “undeclared”.

“The system is just so much more organized,” said Sweet. “It’s more focused on developing the person and how they think of things, rather than just cramming stuff into our brains.”

Now in her sophomore year, Sweet has declared English and said she’s found her place within the UNH community. She’s involved in many clubs on campus in addition to taking four classes. She laughs when asked about free time.

“Spare time, what is that?” said Sweet with a giggle.

Currently, Sweet is enrolled in a variety of Gen Eds this semester, including a persuasive writing class, which she hopes will help her arguments in various debates. A normal day for Sweet starts fairly early in the morning when she gets up and immediately checks to see if her friends, who live in a different time zone in Portugal, have emailed her. Then she usually eats breakfast alone and attends classes, while taking breaks in between and throughout the day to finish any homework she may have.

Sweet said her nights are usually booked with the various clubs and jobs around campus, including working for her hall director and being an active member in the United Asian Coalition and an active member in the Mills Hall Council.

Her biggest challenge at UNH so far?  Writing papers.

“I never had to write papers, I didn’t know how to structure them, I didn’t even know MLA existed,” said Sweet. “I didn’t know what the teachers were expecting, but I definitely learned that quickly with English 401, the teacher here definitely helped me.”

 

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out