Maybe you don’t have the time to eat spaghetti in Italy with a Software Engineering degree, or watched Final Destination and vowed never to board a plane. Experiencing another culture is just not on your college bucket list. Even if you don’t plan on uploading a passport picture to Instagram with an accompanying Bon Voyage! caption you still feel a little remorse everytime you look at a map. Welcome to study abroad FOMO (translation: fear of missing out on an incredible new world and a dank Facebook album.) We know all the classic symptoms.
1. Assuring people that no, really, you don’t mind missing out on an eye-opening and once-in-a-lifetime experience.
2. Logging onto Facebook on the first day of spring and having European architecture and The Great Wall of China bombard you.
3. So you start to feel shut off from the rest of the world, destined to live out the rest of your days as an American hermit.
4. You feel the need to branch out and expand your social circle.
5. Feeling good that you attended your first college Zumba class, but then seeing snapchats of your abroad friends doing cool activities and looking fabulous.
6. People ruining your happiness about the new Chick-Fil-A opening in town when they brag about the futuristic bullet trains and five-story art museums in their host countries.
7. Boiling in envy when your friends brag about the lenient laws across the pond.
8. Feeling like a plain Jane after your friends dazzle you with their authentic merch and cultivated aura.
9. Dealing with people who force you to at least look at that brochure for Australia even though you just can’t leave the country.
10. Deep down you’re okay not being a world traveler, because pizza is accesible within a three mile range no matter where you live in good ol’ ‘Merica.