Category Stories: Alumni Reflections
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How IFSA Made My Abroad Experience Unforgettable
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Cultural immersion, beautiful natural sights, exotic animals (kangaroos!), and breathtaking live entertainment are just a few of the ways I can recap my experience abroad in Sydney, Australia. In addition to the amazing sights and adventures I took part in, I also made some of the closest bonds with people I will never forget. If…
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Let’s Get Real About Study Abroad: It’s Hard, and that’s Exactly Why You Should Do It
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When people ask me how my semester abroad was, they are sometimes shocked that I don’t immediately respond with, “Amazing!” or, “Incredible!” or, “The best five months of my life!” Most of them are family members or friends who haven’t studied abroad before, so they have the same idealistic image of study abroad that I…
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Is Reverse Culture Shock a Myth or Fact?
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The time has come to return home from a wonderful semester abroad. Though this is a bittersweet time, it is time to finally go home. At some point in your study abroad semester, you probably reached a point where you were just ready to go home. For me, I hit that point, and I couldn’t…
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The Only Thing You Need to Pack When Studying Abroad
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Packing can be Challenging Before leaving for my semester abroad, I had no clue what to pack.Do I bring my pillow? What about my kavu? Am I going to need my favorite book? Should I take three or four pairs of shoes?The day I arrived in Cardiff, Wales, I honestly didn’t know what I had ended…
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Don’t Be “Wasteful” when Studying Abroad
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It is always easier to stick to the known and ignore the unknown because it is “scary,” but the unknown is where the adventures take place.I went to Costa Rica with eight other students from the United States. Initially, I told myself I was going to disconnect from the world, meaning no social media, no…
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WV to BA: A Trip from One Ideology to Another
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Wheeling, West Virginia is known for producing a number of famous products and individuals, but it isn’t exactly renowned for churning out global citizens who trot around the world. When I started telling friends and teachers that I was going to be studying in Argentina for a semester, this became quite obvious. “I bet ISIS…
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Parasites: The Best Thing to Happen to Me Abroad
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Oh, the places you’ll go. You hop in a taxi and feel the sweat forming on your quizzically raised brow “Hacia, ‘The Place’ en Miraflores, por favor,” you manage in your sleepy confusion You try to take a mental picture of the people, the noises, the traffic, the smells (what is that?) don’t worry, you are…
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Study Abroad is More than Stamps on a Passport – A Digital Story
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In Argentina, friendship is enigmatically cherished. Real friends are friends for life, and Friends’ Day, July 20th, is as important for Argentinians as Valentine’s Day is in the United States. Without access to a camera, Samantha rented a camcorder from the IFSA-Butler office and took brief videos of her experience abroad. After watching the videos again, she…
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Let Study Abroad Push Your Limits – A Digital Story
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You may have preconceived notions about what you will find in your host country, or what you’re capable of achieving, but you should never let that limit yourself. As she prepared to study abroad, Marianna worried she wasn’t outdoorsy enough for South America. But by the end she conquered all her fears, and came home…
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Science: It’s Even Cooler Abroad – A Digital Story
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I never imagined collecting spiders or digging for insects could make me so excited about not only an environment but also the basic ecology that was going on inside it. Rather than spend her whole semester studying in a classroom, Hannah’s biology class studied on Fraser Island, the only place in the world where rainforest…
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