In the spirit of squeezing every drop out of the college experience, I studied abroad in Oxford during the Spring 2020 semester. While it is sometimes confusing, I feel it is only right to clarify that I studied in Oxford, England, not at Oxford University. The latter is much more prestigious, but the former is much more fun. While students travel from all over the world to study at one of the oldest and well-known universities there is, there is a great deal of responsibility and hard work that goes into it. I was fortunate to enjoy a semester of education classes in my pajamas downstairs from the room I slept in. We got all the perks of being surrounded by one of the most beautiful and historic cities in the world without the stress of slaving away in order to succeed. I’m very thankful that my biggest stressors of the semester were not my classes, but instead the internal struggle of learning how to live somewhere thousands of miles away from everything that was comfortable. Of course, my biggest hardship of the semester ended up being the emergency evacuation from the country I was just beginning to call home because of a global pandemic that changed everything for everyone, but even that had its perks.
The beginning of a journey is always the hardest part. There is so much packing and preparing that goes into it, you’re usually tired before you even get there. Combined with jetlag, a different timezone, new people, and the absence of normalcy, arriving at your destination can be overwhelming, to say the least. But all of that is quickly forgotten thanks to a level of excitement incomparable to any other feeling. I couldn’t sleep for days because my mind couldn’t stop thinking about everything that was waiting for me. My heart pounded as my eyes scanned my new surroundings and explored my temporary home. Every walk to class or the grocery store was an experiment to see if I could find my way back. Every conversation was the beginning of a new friendship that would last for much longer than the semester. Every new thing I tried was a bit of culture I got to experience firsthand. It was magical. It was extremely difficult and oftentimes exhausting, but it was magical.
During my study abroad experience, I traveled to London, Scotland, Switzerland, the Lake District, and Spain. We had plenty of plans to travel to other places, but the missed opportunities made me even more grateful for the places I did get to see. We visited the Globe Theatre, hiked through the Lake District of the UK, took a boat ride across Loch Ness, chased the peaks of the Swiss Alps, and lay on the beaches of Spain. We took breathtaking pictures, tried all kinds of new foods, learned bits and pieces of new languages, studied the history of different cities, and made new friends. It was magical.
The beginning might have been scary and the ending might have been traumatic, but the moments in between made everything worth it. I can’t take it back. I can’t change anything that happened. I can’t do it again. But I can take the memories, the photographs, the friendships, and the lessons learned with me for the rest of my life. If you are the kind of person that’s willing to risk freefalling from your comfort zone in order to experience something that will change your life, study abroad. It is magical.
