The end of the school year is always the time to make important decisions. At the end of freshman year, the two big decisions I needed to make was to choose my housing and to choose my classes for sophomore year. However, at the end of my sophomore year, I was faced with an even bigger decision- whether or not to go abroad. I’m honestly one that doesn’t do well with peer pressure, and by that I mean I usually cave and give in. But I knew this was one of those decisions that I really needed to make on my own. Both of my roommates and all of my best friends were so excited and all knew that the minute applications went out, they wanted to go abroad. I’ve also never been one to have ten million friends. When it comes to friends, I always go with quality over quantity. So, when they were all talking about going abroad, it hit me that I was going to have to put myself out there and make some new friends. That sounded completely awful to me which made me consider going abroad.
One of the biggest factors in my decision is the fact that I get extremely home sick. I only live about an hour from my college, and knowing the fact that at any time I could go home puts me at ease. I knew this would not be the case if I was in another country. During freshman year I felt trapped here because I didn’t have a car, making me feel more anxious than I would have been otherwise. I go home at least twice a month. It’s not always just that I’m homesick but sometimes I want to take a nice bubble bath or do my laundry for free, or have a nice home cooked meal. Even the thought of not being able to see my parents or my dog for four months made me really nervous. Getting homesick is nothing to be embarrassed about. Some people can be away from home for a super long time and not feel anything, where for some people, being away for a few weeks feels hard. And I just happen to be one of those people.
The second reason I decided not to go abroad is because I have never been on an airplane. My family is really into camping and the beach. So our family vacations are usually in Acadia Maine or Cape Cod. It’s not that I’m scared to go on a plane, it’s just that the opportunity hasn’t presented itself until now. However, since I have not been on a plane, that obviously means that I have never been to another country. If I chose the same country as some of my friends then I would have them to help me navigate everything, but I really didn’t think I could do it on my own.
At a lot of family gatherings this summer, many of my relatives asked me if I was going to study abroad. When I said no, almost everyones’ reaction were “WHY NOT?” Let me tell you, explaining my reasoning to everyone wasn’t very much fun, but I knew deep down that I was making the right choice for myself. If going abroad doesn’t seem like the right fit for you, then don’t do it just because everyone else is.