We millennials constantly like and share memes about school not teaching us how to live life beyond the classroom. We laugh at the fact that we are forced to memorize equations and be able to quote books when prompted but haven’t been taught how to rent an apartment or how to file a tax return. These are very real problems that we laugh at because adulthood frightens us. Sure, college teaches you some responsibility, but let’s be honest, it’s nothing like the real world. Just because you have to do your own laundry every once in a while and clean the Pringles crumbs off the floor before your roommate comes back from a night out doesn’t mean you’re suddenly ready to jump into living beyond the dorm. Unless you move off campus, studying abroad is your only option to embrace the real world. Prior to moving halfway across the world, I had no experience in a kitchen, cleaning was a thing I did only when absolutely necessary, and the idea of doing pretty much anything on my own was a foreign thought. However, because I have now been in London for close to three months, I must say that while it’s been a challenge, it’s also been an incredible growth experience. Below I will lay out all of the small but vital life lessons I have learned in my study abroad experience so far that truly will be taken with me into the future.
How to cook
SDH and NDH are great. You just show up and BAM food is just sitting out for you to take. The lukewarm, tasteless flavor, and high sodium aside, it’s not a bad deal. A couple of months ago, I had never prepared a serious meal for myself. Besides the odd peanut butter sandwich or microwavable meal, food preparation was basically a skill I had no experience participating in. All of a sudden I am dropped in a foreign country and have to actually provide sustenance for myself. I’m pretty sure my family was expecting (read: hoping) I would come back skinny and frail from lack of nutrition, but quite the opposite has happened. I tried that whole live off the bare minimum thing for a couple of weeks at the beginning, but then I realized that if I put actual effort into the whole food thing, I wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry. What a concept! Obviously, I am no Gordon Ramsay. In fact, I’m sure if I sent him a picture of my home cooked meals on Twitter he would roast me for all I’m worth. However, that’s not the point. The point is I know how to keep myself alive by cooking and that is already more than I expected to get out of this experience.
How to clean
You think living with roommates in a dorm is tough. So their sock was on your side of the room again? Big deal! Try adding a kitchen and a bathroom to the mix. Already overwhelmed? So was I, but deep breaths were taken and survival was accomplished. Honestly, the biggest wake-up call was doing the dishes. It doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, when you only have one pan to share between four girls, it very quickly becomes an issue. We are lucky that we don’t have to clean the bathroom because while I love *knowing* how to live on my own, I do not need that weekly stressor on top of my 10-page papers. That said, I am glad that cleaning, though minimal in retrospect, is a part of this experience. It is definitely something I needed to improve upon and I think living in an apartment with other humans has shown me how to keep at least common spaces, tidy for the comfort of all who use it.
How to get around a city
Public transport is your friend, not some creepy master of confusion as I originally thought. While the underground is still an adventure I’ve yet to master thanks to the wonderful inaccessibility of European countries, the bus system has been a saving grace. After three months, I can finally take the bus (sometimes) without using a guide app to help me. It’s really helped me to feel more independent and capable. One other incredibly useful skill I have mastered is reading maps. It may sound simple, but it’s more intimidating than it sounds. Picture yourself in a foreign country that doesn’t speak your language. It is eleven o’clock at night and you need to get from the train station to your Airbnb that’s over a mile away. Could you look at a map and get there in one piece? Yeah, I couldn’t either, but after this trip, I feel like I have a fighting chance.
How to book flights, hotels, etc
Checking for the best deals in the safest locations near the things you want to do is tough and time-consuming, but it is possible friends. Many of you probably book flights to and from Notre Dame all the time, but seeing as I come from the Midwest myself, this has never been a skill I have had to learn. All of a sudden I am abroad and I need to keep up with my fellow peers as they see the world. While I did not travel a whole lot this semester, I traveled enough to know it’s exhilarating and exhausting but totally worth the extra effort and money to stay somewhere nice with no bedbug infestations or drive-by shootings outside the front door.
How to talk to strangers
This is hard in America, but I wanted to make the most of my experience and actually talk to people from London. While I have conquered some tiny milestones in this category, I still often put a guard up when addressing locals. That said, I no longer feel fear when asking someone for directions or to take a picture, nor do I feel frightened talking to the lady bagging my items at the grocery store. However, approaching people in a pub is an entirely different issue. Baby steps.
Conversely, how to avoid people
Head down, look annoyed, keep moving. Trust me, it’s a vital skill to have, especially in touristy areas. Unless you want to feel pressured into buying a cheap bracelet for 10 euro, take my advice. Do not engage in conversation and never take anything “free.” Learn from my mistakes.
How to shop and budget
I use the term “budget” loosely, but knowing how much money you have and approximately how much you spend is incredibly important. When I first made my initial budget, I expected to spend 75 pounds on toiletries every month. I don’t think I have spent that amount in total over the entire time I’ve been here. Being aware of these changes is important, however. Because I wasn’t spending as much on toiletries, I had more money to spend on food, so I didn’t feel bad treating myself to a meal out every once in awhile. In the future, when I have an actual salary, I will keep better track of my finances, but the loose budget I made here has gotten me through and I have yet to go bankrupt so I would say that is a definite win.
How to keep in contact with loved ones
Once you leave college, chances are you won’t be living close to any of your campus friends, home friends, and possibly not even close to your family. Making time to maintain those relationships is something I prioritize. I love my friends and family and even being away from them for four months is a challenge. While I don’t FaceTime them every day, I try to make sure we keep in contact in other ways. Needless to say, meme tagging has become one of my favorite past times. Obviously, the time difference is also a struggle, but it is still possible to stay in touch while abroad which gives me hope for post-college life as well.
How to do something alone
I hate being alone and I am sure many other people hate it as well. This past summer, the idea of going to the movie theater to see a movie no one else wanted to see by myself was laughable. However, three months later and not only would I do it, I would have a darn tootin’ good time with my popcorn bowl all to myself. On campus, it can feel weird getting a meal by yourself, but since leaving campus, I must say it’s more common for me to eat alone now than it is for me to eat with others. This doesn’t make me a loner, it just means I cook for myself, therefore I eat by myself. If I want to eat out and no one else wants to spend money, I go alone. If I want to go to a museum and everyone else is busy, I go to the museum. Sure, spending time with others is important, but letting their interests or budgets hold you back is ridiculous. Honestly, if I had to say what skill I’ve learned that was the most important, it would one hundred percent be this one.
How to practice self care
This is a skill I have been working on for years, and it is something I still haven’t mastered. On campus, I always have thought it was challenging to accomplish because homework just always seemed to get in the way. Start adding in cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, going to the gym, a 20-minute commute, and many of the other little additions to your day and suddenly time seems to escape from you even more frequently. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the little tasks you have to do. If you’re traveling on a weekend, that adds even more salt to the wound because you have even less time to get caught up. All that said, self care still needs to be a priority in life, which is something I have learned whenever I try to put it on the backburner. Since being in London, I have felt so much pressure to go out and do everything I possibly can in the precious amount of time I have been given. Unfortunately, this is incredibly exhausting to not just my health, but my wallet as well. Learning how to take a day off, even when you have a thousand cool things right outside your doorstep is the key to mental, emotional, and physical health, not just abroad, but in regular daily life as well.
All of these things may seem quite arbitrary and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but for a girl who has lived in a sheltered farm town community for most of her life, this list is quite monumental. Obviously, some of the things were exaggerated to a certain extent for entertainment value, but overall, all of the above skills have improved since coming to London. I knew I would love studying abroad, but I thought it would be for the culture and the experience, not for the new sense of independence I feel within me.
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