I flew 5,135 miles to study at the University of Glasgow. I expected everything to be different.
It wasn’t, mostly. The big things – the course, the city, the accent – barely registered as changes. It was the small things, the ones you’d never think to prepare for, that hit hardest.
The Chaos and the Opportunity
Every single day, something was happening. Societies, coursework, job hunting, university talks, sports, it all blurred into one bowl of chaos and opportunity.
And I am, by nature, a once-a-week-main-activity kind of girl. A certified hermit. So I was overwhelmed, a feeling I’ve since learned is nearly universal among international students.
But it wasn’t fear of the unknown weighing on me. It was something heavier: the responsibility to my future self to make the most of every single moment.
Be Picky (Just Not Too Picky)
My strategy was to be picky. Choose carefully, commit fully.
Then a wise man told me: say yes to everything.
Both are true, oxymoron as that sounds. My university had a surplus of opportunity constantly on offer, so finding new environments to step into was never the hard part. Choosing between all of them was.
No one makes it to everything, especially once sports enter the equation. Time moves fast here, faster than you expect, and pacing yourself matters just as much as saying yes. The real skill isn’t attendance. It’s deciding what an hour spent in one room is worth against an hour spent in another.
Comfort Zones, Challenged and Nourished
Change was never really optional. Anyone who chooses to study abroad already knows that, and, deep down, welcomes it.
Comfort zones should be challenged and nourished at the same time.
University is for trying, failing, and trying again. For new foods, new places, new people – everything, all at once, all the time. But it’s also for allowing yourself room to breathe. The coursework will overwhelm you on one hand. The social side will welcome you with both arms on the other.
Somewhere between those two hands is where you actually live.
I came 5,135 miles expecting to be changed by the big things. I was, just not in the way I packed for.