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Home Away from Home
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Being a first-generation student in my family, and certainly the first to study abroad, my arrival in Scotland came with many mixed feelings of excitement, anxiety and pure displacement. After orientation in Edinburgh I was taken to my apartment, generously under the direction of the IFSA staff, who also gave me a wonderful initial tour…
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How Studying Abroad has Everlasting Impacts on Your Life-long Goals
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You studied abroad, now what? The return home from studying abroad was a whole bag of mixed emotions, spanning from intense sadness to extreme joy. I was upset to be leaving such a beautiful and naturalistic country, but also happy to return home to the comfort of my family and friends. This “bitter-sweet” experience lasted…
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As Cliché As It Sounds, I “Found Myself” Abroad
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Preconceived Notions are Hard to Overcome American students studying abroad have almost become a parody of themselves. From painstakingly staged Instagram posts of picnics under the Eiffel Tower to bar-hopping in Barcelona, the portrait of the college junior taking a semester to “study” whilst draining their parents’ wallets romping around Europe is not entirely flattering.…
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What Studying Abroad Taught Me About Learning a New Language
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Doubt “Sí, se puedes.” These are the words that hung on a poster on the back wall of Rodney’s (my IFSA Resident Director) office. The phrase means “Yes, you can” in Spanish. However, as I sat in front of Rodney, nearly in tears, I could not bring myself to believe these words. I had been abroad in…
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How to Overcome the Mid-Semester Slump
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1. Admit that it’s okay to feel down. No one likes to admit it, but being abroad won’t feel like the best months of your life 100% of the time. The pressure to feel like you’re enjoying every moment makes it hard to take a step back and let yourself admit that sometimes you miss…
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Easy Ways to Connect to the Caribbean in London
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London has a large population of immigrants from the continent of Africa as well as the Caribbean. As such, it can be easy to make yourself feel at home as an Afro-Caribbean person in London. Nigeria, Somalia and Jamaica are just a few countries a part of the African diaspora that have a noticeable presence…
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STEMing Abroad!
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I remember turning up an extra ten minutes early and as I stood outside my professor’s office, and I was super nervous—what was my first tutorial at Oxford going to be like? By Sophomore year, I knew I wanted to study abroad, but because most of my college’s programs were generally catered for Engineering students,…
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Saving Money in Costa Rica
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Managing money abroad is always a topic of stress, regardless of one’s financial status. No matter how much leeway you have with your budget, it’s always best to err on the side of saving money. Here are some tips I’ve found helpful in saving money in Costa Rica: Before you go The first step to…
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Bipolar Abroad
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College life presents many challenges, but for those students dealing with mental illness, it can seem like an insurmountable task at times. I speak from experience, as I cope daily with bipolar II, which is a manic-depressive mood disorder. Managing bipolar disorder while studying abroad can seem even more insurmountable, but with the right preparation…
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How Immersing Myself in the Buenos Aires Theatre Scene Made My Abroad Experience Special
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Buenos Aires is a city overflowing with an abundance of cultural, political, and artistic expression. One of my absolute favorite things about Argentina’s capital is not only the enormous quantity of artists– performance artists, visual artists, musical artists, and more– who inhabit the city and make creation commonplace, but the sense of true appreciation for…