Summer is only a few moments away, we can feel it on our faces as we walk to class a little warmer, our puffy coats hanging inside. We can sense spring break as we dream of sandy beaches during Chemistry. As students, many of us crave summer, not just for the hot weather and the the tan that comes with it! We get excited for the opportunity that is ahead! Are you going to do an internship to improve your resume? Get a job to help pay for college? Or are you one of the lucky few that gets to study abroad during the summer? Being one of the “lucky few” who gets to study abroad is also a societal norm that gets carried with it.
Studying abroad is an incredible experience and is one that, unfortunately, not every one can afford. Because of this, there seems to be an enormous pressure if you are one of the few to be excited–that is all you are allowed to feel otherwise you come off as ungrateful. Studying abroad is amazing and wonderful and everything good in between, committing to study abroad is scary and requires taking some risks.
It is committing to a summer or a semester away from your friends and everything that you know to be your normal. It is saying goodbye to summer traditions that you’ve had since you were little. It is a lot of money for something that has no guarantee to be everything you dreamed and hoped for. It is learning a new culture and a lot of times, communicating in a second language. It is new, different and there are frankly, no promises that a good time will be had.
It is also an opportunity for growth and development as a person-not matter how your experience goes. I relate this a lot back to my first year of college. I went to a school out of state and while it was not everything I dreamed it would be and I did eventually transfer back-it was new, different, and frankly, good times were not always had. What it was, was a life-changing learning and growing experience. This is what I hope to be everyone’s study abroad experience. Despite all of the emotions that are inherently going to come with it and that are inherently going to try to be shut down-studying abroad should be something that alters you, even in the tiniest ways, and that in itself is worth all of the fear, money, and change.