Valentina Haboush is an international student of Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Nebraska. She is from Uruguay, South America and her major is Physical Education. She participated in Soccer Showcase in Florida and there she met and got to know the coach of the women’s soccer team at Northeast. Thanks to this meeting, Haboush got a scholarship and now she plays on the Northeast team. Valentina loves soccer, she likes to watch and practice it. She already has a degree in Sports Journalism from a college in Uruguay. Her main goal is to play soccer to get experience in the sport.  She is going back to her country when the Fall, 2017 semester is finished. Valentina feels differently than she expected but says her stay here was a good experience. She has friends from all over the world and this makes her feel comfortable at Northeast.  “There is diversity in this college and its good”, said Haboush.

Valentina arrived at Northeast on August, 2016 and she has had the chance to visit several states in America. She says Norfolk is a quiet town with not too many attractions, she doesn’t go out too often to parties because she is focusing on her classes and practices with the Northeast team. She says she likes to travel and the United States is a very good country because there are a lot of good places to visit with many activities. She has visited countries like: Europe, England, France, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Cuba but she says if she had to choose one place to live she would choose Uruguay. Sometimes, when she plays soccer away from home she remembers she is too far from her country, she misses her family, food from her country, going to the beach and getting together with friends.

In the future, she would like to be a soccer coach, keep traveling on her vacations and be happy doing what she is doing. This December she will take two of her soccer teammates to her country. For now, they are looking for reasonable airline tickets but she hopes they will be able to go, because it will be very fun and they will get to see different cultures and open their minds, says Haboush.