Year after year thousands of students choose to study at the University of Missouri in Columbia. In 2016, nearly three thousand of those people were international students. They all have their reasons for choosing which school they attend, but other factors come into play that make their college experience even more memorable, which also goes for those who choose to study abroad.
Twenty-three-year-old Ailean Beaton flew into New York from the UK and rode a bus for twenty-seven hours to arrive at Mizzou. Fortunately, he will not have to endure that same fate when returning home at the end of the semester as he will only be taking planes back to the UK and will return to his home on the Isle of Skye just in time for Christmas.
(Pictured: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Source: Pixabay)
Beaton is currently studying journalism which is the main reason that he traveled to the university here in Columbia. “I came for the school,” he said. “The location was secondary.” Eventually, the idea of moving across the country for a semester started to become more intriguing for him. “It stopped being a weird thing and started being interesting,” he said.
However, journalism was not Beaton’s initial area of study. “At first I studied music for two years. It ended up making more sense to do journalism, but I didn’t realize it until recently,” he acknowledged. Now he is in his junior year at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland and plans to graduate in a little over a year.
(Pictured: Edinburgh, Scotland. Source: Pixabay)
Life in Missouri has been treating Beaton well except for one downside: “I don’t have a car,” he explained. Nevertheless, he enjoys the campus and the variety of places it offers for him to visit and study outdoors. “I could sit in the Francis Quadrangle all day and read,” he said. Beaton has also started adapting to Columbia. “I get American culture to some extent, and I think I’ve gotten used to it,” he said. He has discovered that not only is he eager to learn about America, but also that people are curious to know about him as well. “I’ve found that people ask where you’re from and are interested. I’ve had to slow down how I speak because I speak quite fast,” Beaton observed.
One difference that Beaton has found between Napier University and Mizzou is the structure and variety of courses. “Back home the courses are very different,” he explained. “We don’t have majors and minors.” Instead, their classes focus on their area of study and they do not generally take classes that are outside their particular area. Coming here, Beaton had the opportunity to take a political science lecture class on American government which he found interesting.
Beaton came to Columbia this semester along with two other friends from Edinburgh. “I planned to come here before I knew that they were coming,” he pointed out. However, having friends alongside him while temporarily moving to another country has made it a bit easier for him.
All in all, coming to Mizzou has been a rewarding experience for Beaton. “It’s been a long time that I’ve wanted to come to America,” he said. “The journalism school is great. The people are lovely.” After living here for about half of a semester, Beaton can hardly believe that he only has a couple months left. “Five months doesn’t seem like enough,” he admitted. But coming here has shown him a glimpse of what it’s like to live in the United States, and the experience is a gift that Beaton can take with him wherever he decides to go in life.
(Pictured: Francis Quadrangle and Jesse Hall, Columbia, Missouri. Source: Pixabay)