The decision to come on study abroad was not an easy one. My sophomore year, I was the poorest I’d ever been in college and when my French teacher told us about the study abroad program at Science Po, I couldn’t imagine being able to afford going to France. Over the summer, I managed to work and save up money and was feeling much more secure financially. This is when I really started to take an interest in study abroad. I looked into Science Po and the EPA program but was still very much on the fence (as evidenced by the many Google Docs full of pros and cons I have on the subject). A few things gave me the real push I needed to come on this trip and to apply to other study abroad programs in the future.
Damon & Jo
I fell down the rabbit hole of their videos during winter break and was so incredibly inspired by them to travel. They started off studying abroad in Paris in college and have turned traveling cheaply into their careers with funny and educational YouTube videos. Watching them gave me an itch to travel and their social media and blog posts have sustained this desire.
Fellowships
I managed to go on this study abroad program, but I chickened out of two others I was planning on doing consecutively after this one due to the amount of money it would cost. I felt really disappointed though, because I really wanted to study abroad in Asia. I hit up my good friend Google and searched up ways to pay for study abroad. I was shown a plethora of amazing fellowships, many of which I definitely qualified for. I made an appointment with the fellowship office here at Drexel (who are freaking awesome, by the way) and I’m happy to say I sent in my application for the Critical Language Scholarship, which would send me to Korea for 10 weeks this summer if I get it. If you have your heart set on studying abroad but lack the funds, please consider this as an option!
Language Learning
I never stop bringing up the fact that I have been learning French for 17 years but that’s a super long time to speak a language without having gone to a country that speaks it! I really wanted to see meaningful improvement in my French skills and study abroad is the best way to do that. When I visited Paris, I only spoke English once the entire time I was there which is amazing to me considering the fact that I didn’t study abroad in France for fear that my language skills wouldn’t be good enough. I definitely want to study abroad or at least spend a year in France one day, but I also want to learn Korean and Portuguese, so add those countries to the list of places I want to go next!
Social Media
Social media has the potential to be toxic but it can also be a great source of inspiration if you want the push to travel. I scrolled through so many cool travel pics and read so many blog posts about study abroad and traveling before I came here. If you’re on the fence currently, try to tailor your feeds to always have at least one wanderlust post on it to ignite that desire to travel!
If by any chance you are reading this and you’re on the fence about studying abroad, I definitely encourage you to go for it. You regret 100% of the chances you don’t take!