What are you waiting for? Go study abroad! Best thing in your college career... As you can see, Cris truly feels this is one of the most incredible experiences you will have in your lifetime. She wishes she had studied abroad during her college career and truly regrets not doing it. Cris was born in Havana, Cuba and spent the first eight years of her life there, until her family fled to the United States following Castro's rise to power. She has lived in two cultures all her life with one foot in the U.S. and the other one 90 miles away in Cuba. Cris completed her undergraduate degree in Political Science at UMass Amherst and then continued on to a Masters in Educational Policy and Administration. She has been a photographer, worked for a cruise line in Miami, worked in an ad agency in New Jersey, traveled the world recruiting students for an area college and started an international office at a state school in Massachusetts. Her most rewarding job: “What I am doing now, facilitating study abroad opportunities for students at UMass.”