One of the greatest challenges during the past few weeks has been the language barrier. I took Spanish classes for four years in school, but had no other experiences with the language until coming to Costa Rica. Now, having to communicate in Spanish, not only for casual conversations, but also for work-related conversations, has been very challenging.
All of the engineers at Boston Scientific are required to have a certain English proficiency level. However, most conversations in the office take place in Spanish. On Monday of this week, I took part in a training course about the statistical methods used to validate manufacturing processes. Although the written information was in English, the instructor spoke in Spanish. The material I learned in the course will be very useful for the testing I will be doing in the next few weeks, but understanding the language the course was taught in would have made it that much more valuable. In addition, most of the employees who work on the manufacturing lines know little to no English. This makes it more difficult when I need information about the equipment or processes used in manufacturing. All of this has added an extra layer to the learning curve of my first internship at a medical device company.
Through these difficulties however, my understanding of Spanish is certainly improving. As I speak and hear it spoken more, I can usually understand enough to get the main ideas of what is being said. Everyone at Boston Scientific has been very understanding and accommodating as I try my best to learn. We’re now at the halfway mark of our time in Costa Rica, and I am happy with what I have accomplished so far and looking forward to improving my Spanish more in the weeks to come.