Hi guys! I hope everyone is having a great fall semester and enjoying the last few beautiful weeks before winter sets in and Williams turns into a ghost town. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Johanna and I’m a junior at Williams. I wrote quite a bit for the HerCampus blog last year and loved it. This year, I’m spending the year abroad studying at Oxford University through the Williams Exeter Program at Oxford (WEPO), but I didn’t want to leave my HerCampus days behind me. Even though I’m not on campus, I’m going to be writing a guest blog every few weeks updating you all on my adventures abroad and giving you some helpful hints for studying away. I’m going to try and follow along with the study abroad process at Williams and since sophomores are just now attending the study away fairs and meeting with Dean McKeon I’ve come up with two of of my most important thoughts about applying and deciding where to studying away for this post:
1. Plan ahead and MAKE LISTS
Preparing to study away can be a laborious process; it involves a great deal of planning with lots of paperwork and lots of deadlines. My best advice is to make lists and make lots of them. The Dean’s office can only get you so far. Much of the study abroad process requires students to be proactive. No one is going to be sending you emails reminding you to finish your program application, so it’s really important to be on top of things. You don’t want to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime because you couldn’t get your shit together. I know that the study abroad process on top of the normal workload can sometimes seem insurmountable, but as someone who has survived the whole thing, I know it can be done it just requires a little extra consideration. At the beginning of my sophomore year I started to make lists of the programs I wanted to apply to and their deadlines as well as the logistical Williams things I had to do before leaving campus. This process served me really well and helped me keep on top of all the dates. Lists were also really helpful when packing but more on that at a later date.
2. Know yourself and your limits
Studying away involves choosing to leave the school you know, and transporting yourself into an entirely new environment often in a foreign country with far less support and resources then Williams. For that reason my most important advice is to know yourself and to know your limits. When deciding where to go abroad and for how long it’s good to push yourself and get out of your comfort zone, but it’s equally important to recognize your limits and decide early on what kind of things your willing and able to handle. For example: “I want to go abroad but I’ve never traveled internationally so I’d be more comfortable in a place where there is no language barrier” or “I know I want to travel abroad but I’d rather not study in a large city.”
Being honest with yourself up front about what you do and do not want in a study away experience is really important later on. You don’t get brownie points for deciding to go to an obscure country or a dangerous city. If you want to go to Barcelona and go to clubs every night and chill, do it. No matter where you go or what you choose, studying away will inevitably come with some difficulties. That is why it’s critical that you put yourself in a situation that you can deal with right off the bat.
At the end of the day studying abroad is supposed to enrich you in some way whether it be academically, socially, intellectually or culturally. It is about you and what you want for yourself so choose a place and a program with that in mind.
Until next time, I’m signing off from across the pond! Good luck!