Life lessons learned abroad

July 27, 2009 by Courtney Waldron 

the traveling shorts

My summer studying abroad has come to an end. After spending my entire spring semester planning courses and plane tickets and after a full summer of living a dream in a European city, it’s time to pack up and go back to Vegas. But I’m really not ready to leave.

Now that all is said and done, people are going to ask what I thought of the trip. Do I think it was worth the stress of spending months researching scholarships and loans to finance one of my biggest college expenses? Do I think it was worth the headache of filling out visa applications, housing placement forms and airline payment information on the Internet? Would I recommend studying or living abroad to anyone considering the trip?

Yes. With all the weight of my body and all the gusto in my bones – yes, yes, yes. Go! Turn off your computer screen and run out of the same bedroom or office you’ve been sitting in for months – maybe even years – and get to the international programs office as fast as you can. Speed walk in the heat of the awful Las Vegas summer inferno. And when you dash through the door bleeding sweat and heaving for air, tell them, “I want to study abroad!”

Do it.

And if you’re still not persuaded by my passionate over-dramatization, here are a few more reasons that might convince you to study abroad:
To learn a new language.

Studying a foreign language in a foreign country will do more than satisfy your university core requirements, it will make you more marketable in the world of employment and entitle you to a pay raise.

Learning another language teaches you patience. More importantly, it teaches you to stop talking so much. It’s not that I’m advocating staying quiet when you’re trying to learn new ways of talking. The only way to learn is to push yourself to say what you can. But you choose your words more carefully when you have to think about them.

To try new foods.

Break your 200-morning streak of eggs and waffles for breakfast. Changing the patterns of your everyday life includes diversifying your palette.

Surrounded by a new environment, you might try something new if your usual treats aren’t available at your usual mealtimes – seafood, stronger coffee, eggs for dinner or calamari covered in its own ink.

To travel.

You won’t only experience the city in which you’re studying, you’ll have opportunities to visit other places as well. Let the travel bug under your skin and try to see as much as you can, because the more you see how many ways of living exist, the less stuck you are in your own little world.

There’s something invigorating, too, about the experience of traveling. So much happens to you in so little time and everything is new. When you ride a bus for seven hours to get to Barcelona and see the Gaudí architecture and street statues. Or when you get lost in San Sebastian and get help from a bachelor party under the condition you let the best man kiss you on the cheek. Or when instead of paying money for a hostel and showering in the morning you take the midnight bus between Granada and Sevilla and walk around two cities for 48 hours, dirty, tired and loving everything you see. When you travel, not only do you see the rest of the world, but your world recharges as well.

To be uncomfortable.

Learn to make yourself comfortable. When you put yourself in a situation that’s unfamiliar and have to learn to adjust, you gain a kind of confidence that is invaluable. You know you can live in a country where everyone speaks a different language and learn to communicate. You know you can be completely lost in an unfamiliar city at two in the morning and use maps, taxis and metros to find your way home. You know you can decide to book a flight to Rome, pay for the ticket, take the plane, go to Italy and make it back home all on your own. Traveling, you learn about your independent self. And that makes you invincible.

For every reason to study abroad I’ve listed, I could think of thousands more reasons not to go. It costs too much. It will delay graduation. It will cause too much separation between family and friends.

It’s impossible to travel – especially to study abroad – under the perfect circumstances. But if you let yourself try it, make yourself flexible and enjoy as much of the experience as you can, I guarantee what you learn will be worth any setback the trip might cause.

Go study abroad. Go travel. It will change your entire world if you let it.