The deadline for studying abroad in the fall is quickly approaching, and many students are scrambling last minute to turn in forms, signed papers and submit their essays to the destination of their choice. Yet, no longer do students have to frantically research their schools to find reviews of classes, dorms, and their school’s social life. Meet Lauren and Carlyn, both juniors, who founded allabroadstudents.com. Read more about their website, how it can help with your abroad experience!
Her Campus Emory (HCE): What is allabroadstudents.com?
Lauren Freydberg and Carlyn Shear (LF and CS) – Allabroadstudents.com is the go-to abroad guide for US college students studying abroad. It is an interactive and informative website that is organized by city of study and is designed to educate students on a variety of activities, including must see attractions, potential pitfalls, and great places to travel to.
HC: Why did you create it?
LF: At first, it was created so we could document our own abroad experience, but it has evolved into much more. I love to take pictures and write, so I was always planning on creating an abroad blog, but after talking with Carlyn we decided to take it a couple steps further. Once we realized there was no guide out there that specifically addresses college students studying abroad, we thought we would create this website to fill that void and help future study abroad students in their planning process. Now being back from the best semester of our lives in London, we have made it our mission to continue the expansion of allabroadstudents.com.
CS: My friends can all attest that I am a planner…Before going abroad I started researching places all over London to eat, shop, workout, and go out. While there were a few websites that were helpful with things to do (like Time Out London), I didn’t feel like there was anything that spoke directly to me, an American student studying abroad in Europe. We kind of just took initiative to fill the void and then All Abroad was born!
HC: How are your writers chosen?
LF and CS: Last semester, we recruited our friends from Emory that were traveling to different abroad locations to write for the site since that is when the website was launched. We definitely give major props to our first semester of writers because they were extremely devoted and helped us paint the path of the site. This semester, we recruited writers from different schools, including WashU, Cornell and Wisconsin to increase exposure and gain different perspectives on the abroad experience.
HC: Where do you see allabroadstudents.com in the next few years?
LF: We definitely have high hopes for allabroadstudents.com. It has been extremely motivating for us to receive such great feedback about the site and to have excited students wanting to write for us. We plan to continuously expand the site to different schools as well as vigorously market it on different social media platforms (Like our Facebook page, All Abroad, and follow us on Instagram at Allabroadstudents!). We also hope to revamp the website to give it a more sleek look and to make it easier to navigate.
CS: We both read a lot of online blogs and websites that we want to eventually try to emulate more (like Daily Candy, Refinery29 and even Her Campus!). We launched All Abroad in August, so the past few months have really just been about getting used to working and managing the website. Our main goals for the next year are expanding to more countries and widening our audience (we’re definitely looking to add some male writers as well!).
HC: Why did you study abroad?
LF: Coming into college, I always knew I wanted to study abroad. I love to travel and try new things, so after going on a teen tour in high school, I knew there was no better way to do that than with close friends. I studied abroad last semester in London and had the absolute best time. I loved completely immersing myself into the different cultures, meeting new people and traveling all over Europe every weekend.
CS: Prior to going abroad, I had only been out of the country once. I knew that it would be a truly once in a lifetime opportunity, to be able to travel so much in such a short period of time, so I took advantage of it! I also studied in London and I miss everything about the city and culture every day.
HC: What was a memorable experience from your time abroad?
LF: It is hard to say what my most memorable experience was because studying abroad as a whole was completely life changing. With that being said, going to Munich for Oktoberfest was a weekend I will never forget. It was one of my first weekends abroad and it was so crazy to see all of my friends, friends of friends and long lost camp friends in one place across the world.
CS: Pretty much everything we did was memorable as we were constantly trying new things, travelling to new places and exploring different sites. I would have to say that my trip to Budapest was the most memorable trip. Out of our London crew, only my friend Sarah and I wanted to go to Budapest, so in order to make the trip as cost effective as possible we only spent 38 hours there. In those 38 hours, we managed to see all of the sites that our “tour guides” (shout out to Ben, Kyle and Jayson) deemed important, go to a Hungarian bath and experience Hungarian nightlife. We ended up walking more than twenty miles in those two days, but it was completely worth it!
HC: What advice can you give to students who are interested in studying abroad?
LF: Allabroadstudents.com can definitely help with this question, but I would tell everyone to PLAN, PLAN, PLAN. Creating a bucket list in the beginning of the semester is key because it encourages you to see everything there is to see. It is also essential to create an itinerary before traveling on the weekends because it is not fun wandering around a foreign city trying to ask locals that speak a completely different language questions. It is also a great way to make the most of your time and coordinate your days based on where each must-see attraction is located. Carlyn can back me up when I say we regret not making an itinerary for our trip to Paris after having to walk 20 miles (I wish I was exaggerating) because we didn’t know how far away one thing was located from another.
CS: I don’t know how we would have survived without tips and lists from our older friends who had studied abroad. It was so helpful to have recommendations of great restaurants, the most important sites to see, best airlines to use and hotels to stay at, etc. Our goal for All Abroad is to essentially be this kind of “guide” for all students, whether they are reading it prior to applying and determining where they want to study, or reading it while abroad and planning a trip to another city. I can also definitely back Lauren up on how important planning ahead is. While our website has a lot of tips for places to go and things to do, there are also itineraries (pre-tested by our writers!) as well as things NOT to do.