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Unprecedented: Being the First but Not Last Generation Abroad.
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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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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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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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ROTC: Future Officers and Studying Abroad
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Chris Reardon, a Virginia native participating in ROTC through the Marine Corps, and Lauren Lohmiller, an upstate New Yorker in Army ROTC, are both studying abroad in Shanghai, China this semester. They are both seniors at Norwich University, the United States’s oldest private military college, and both are majoring in Chinese. Coincidentally, they are also…
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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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Goodbye London, Or: It’s a New Beginning
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Four months ago, when I just arrived in London, I was shy, scared to make friends with others, and also anxious about whether I would enjoy my time here. I remember clearly that I wouldn’t even go out of my room as my social anxiety hindered me from meeting with other people. Now, as my…
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Who am I Really
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I didn’t want to have to lose myself in order to find who I am supposed to be, but as I got my passport stamped in Cork Airport, I felt as if I was losing my identity. Coming from a small town and attending college in the smallest city on the east coast, I had…
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How to Survive & Thrive Until Study Abroad Really Begins
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My journey into study abroad was filled with many emotional highs and lows. It was like a novel; it had a beginning, middle and end. Everyone talked about the beginning and end, but where was the middle, the heart of the story? No one ever mentioned it, that time between acceptance and actually being abroad.Everyone…
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It’s Fun Studying Abroad (IFSA)
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IFSA is more than just an organization to help students study abroad. They made me feel less alone while I was abroad. The status of being a foreigner was definitely evident, regardless of the similarities between American and British cultures. A majority of students in London commuted to university, and therefore many friend groups formed…
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A Routine Abroad: The Lessons I Learned from a Busy Schedule in New Zealand
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When you begin to think about going abroad, anybody who has spent time studying in another country will tell you that it was the best semester/year of their college career. They tell you about the people they met, the classes they took and the things they saw. Just by talking to them, you can tell…