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Category Stories: Family Matters

  • When Abroad, Phone Home!

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    When Abroad, Phone Home!

    Reality Hits It’s that time of the semester when there is increasing popularity of memes speaking to many students abroad who are slowly realizing that they still have academic responsibilities and are bracing themselves for the impending doom of neglecting them. The academics may be different from back home, but assignments, essays and exams still do exist on…

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  • Mi Familia Chilena: How I Found Home After Being Uprooted Abroad

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    Mi Familia Chilena: How I Found Home After Being Uprooted Abroad

    About a month and a half into my semester abroad, I had to switch host families for reasons beyond my control. While this experience was disorienting and stressful, in the end it turned out about as well as it could have, and it revealed a lot to me about the support network that IFSA-Butler cultivates…

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  • The Best of Two Continents – Cultivating Your Image Abroad

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    The Best of Two Continents – Cultivating Your Image Abroad

    Never in my wildest childhood dreams did I think that I’d pull a Hannah Montana and get The Best of Both Worlds– or in my case, the best of two continents. I’m not quite sure what I expected when I went abroad. Part of me had grasped the concept of starting a new- sort of -life, but I hadn’t…

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  • Unprecedented: Being the First but Not Last Generation Abroad.

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    Unprecedented: Being the First but Not Last Generation Abroad.

    Who we are is a story that we tell ourselves. It is a sentiment I have heard reiterated by coaches, professors, and friends as a means of motivation. “You are strong if you believe yourself to be!” “You can do remarkable things if you believe that you are worthy and are capable of them!”One of…

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  • A Very Special Poya Day

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    A Very Special Poya Day

    October 15th in Sri Lanka was more than just another Saturday: for me and my family it was Poya Day, it was my amma’s birthday, and it was a day full of bonding and fun! (Just for reference, “amma” means mom, “akka” means older sister, and “tatta” means dad in Sinhala – these are my…

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  • How My Family Ties Convinced Me To Go To University College Cork

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    How My Family Ties Convinced Me To Go To University College Cork

    My Family Is the Reason I Studied Abroad In Ireland I am and always have been a very nervous person when starting something new. After starting college three years ago and it seemed to take forever to settle in, I figured that studying abroad would never really be an option – because by the time…

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  • Keeping Current From Thousands of Miles Away

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    Keeping Current From Thousands of Miles Away

     Writing for IFSA ‘s student blog as a First Generation Scholar has made my study abroad experience so unique and special. It has also made it a bit daunting. There are endless topics I could write about, well past 1000 words. There are also students out there just like me, first generation college kids with…

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  • Study Abroad as a Married Student

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    Study Abroad as a Married Student

    There  are many reasons why I chose to study abroad in Lima, Peru, during the spring 2016 semester, but the dominant motivation was the choice to marry my husband, who is from Peru.I always get mixed reactions when I tell people that I got married at the beginning of my study abroad program with IFSA-Butler,…

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  • 5 Tips to Stay Connected to Home While Abroad

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    5 Tips to Stay Connected to Home While Abroad

    Talking about all the exploration, learning and immersion that a study abroad experience can bring, it’s easy to forget the reality that it also involves being away from friends, family and home for months. In one way or another, every student will experience homesickness and loneliness – but that doesn’t have to inhibit all the…

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  • Dear First-Generation College Student, You’re Gonna Be Okay

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    Dear First-Generation College Student, You’re Gonna Be Okay

    Studying Abroad as a First Generation College Student Being a first generation college student, studying abroad seemed out of reach at first and a bit terrifying. My decision to study abroad in Buenos Aires is one that I am deeply happy with and wouldn’t change it for anything. One of the hardest decisions before studying…

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