I have never been the type of person who couldn’t wait to leave home and travel. I actually hate change, so when anything in my life shifts, I have a hard time adjusting. One of the reasons why I chose Fairfield was because it was so close to home. I couldn’t imagine having my parents be so far away that they couldn’t reach me if I needed them or I couldn’t get to them if they needed me.
So when sophomore year came around and everyone was applying to study abroad, I was torn between my desire to see the world for the experience of a lifetime and my fear of being thousands of miles away from home. In the end, I made the decision to stay at Fairfield while everyone else traveled, explored, learned, and grew come the end of junior year. However, my decision has always saddened me in a way.
The first time I ever flew was last year and since then I have only been on one other plane and just recently went out of the country for the first time. I think that my lack of knowledge was a major factor in my deciding against studying abroad since I had never done it before, I didn’t know what I was missing. But now that I have gotten a little taste of traveling and experiencing new worlds, I regret my decision to no end. It is such an addictive feeling. Once you travel somewhere cool you just want to keep traveling and keep seeing new things and creating new experiences. I think that helps you grow as a person. Nothing is more educational than actual experiences.
I have always wondered why people come back from studying abroad as “changed” people. It never made any sense to me. It actually annoyed me at times (like we get it, you studied abroad). But after thinking about it, my friends’ experiences must actually have been life changing or else they wouldn’t be talking about them like this. Once I began to ask about their time in Italy, France, Germany, Iceland, Australia, and Ireland, I began to fall deeper and deeper into regret. They spoke so beautifully about how awesome the people were, how amazing the sights were, how delicious the food was, and how rich the cultures were. Once I got over my immediate jealousy of the fact that they got gelato in Florence instead of at Sunny Daes, I respected them for being so brave as to go on such an invigorating journey. I decided I wanted to experience life and learn and grow, I would just have to do it in the United States.
I am no longer angry at the fact that I didn’t go abroad because I know now that I wasn’t ready to. However, I am reaching the end of my college life, I have been on my own adventures and found that although I missed out on a few gelatos, beaches, and museums and I found myself in a different way than my cultured friends. They helped me see that now I am brave enough to travel and continue on with life. I am so excited to live abroad or in a big city or wherever my future may take me. In the meantime, I will be waiting with open arms when a new chapter of my journey continues after graduation in June 2016!