My Two Cents: College is much too short to not choose to study abroad
Kate Barker
Issue date: 11/17/09 Section: Opinion
In short: I did what almost every kid does abroad, by which I mean I had a completely unique and yet entirely standard taste of what it is to live in another corner of this world.
I must relay: Loyola, for all of the good things I can say about it, did not do much to facilitate this time for me, and it is for that reason I decided to write this article.
I left my first "Abroad Information Session" near tears. I had been told that my choice of London (which is not a Loyola program) would be next to impossible to fit into my schedule if I planned on graduating on time (that little detail).
I could either spend my time in England in Newcastle or I could start bartering with a reluctant Loyola.
I chose the latter, and after many weeks of picking apart my degree audit, filling out double sets of forms for Loyola and for AIFS (the program I ended up going through), formally withdrawing from Loyola, and surrendering my rights to on-campus housing for my second semester of Junior Year, I got my way.
Off to London I went. A year later I can sit here and confidently say that all of the hassle in the world could not bring me to rethink that decision.
Orchestrating "abroad" is difficult enough, what with passports, Visas, fingerprinting, and figuring out how on earth you're going to fit four months of your life into two 50 pound suitcases.
It is unsurprising therefore, that many students are inclined to forgo less-popular, more complicated, non-Loyola programs.
For anyone out there who feels the same combination of interest and laziness that I did towards a non-Loyola program, I urge you, beg you, to do yourself a favor, and select a program based on its destination rather than its general ease. I will soon forget the annoyance of attempting to look for Loyola off-campus housing while sitting in a computer lab in Kensington, but I will always remember stepping out my front door every morning and finding myself in the thick of London.
Assuming I eventually get my act together, get a job, have a family, make monthly payments on a mortgage: it is entirely possible and probable that I will never get another opportunity to live overseas and to travel the way I did during my time abroad.
It is a reality I can live with solely because I am so satisfied with the way I lived out my first European experience. It wasn't easy, but it was deeply, profoundly worth it.
College is short, but time spent abroad is shorter: treat it accordingly.
I must relay: Loyola, for all of the good things I can say about it, did not do much to facilitate this time for me, and it is for that reason I decided to write this article.
I left my first "Abroad Information Session" near tears. I had been told that my choice of London (which is not a Loyola program) would be next to impossible to fit into my schedule if I planned on graduating on time (that little detail).
I could either spend my time in England in Newcastle or I could start bartering with a reluctant Loyola.
I chose the latter, and after many weeks of picking apart my degree audit, filling out double sets of forms for Loyola and for AIFS (the program I ended up going through), formally withdrawing from Loyola, and surrendering my rights to on-campus housing for my second semester of Junior Year, I got my way.
Off to London I went. A year later I can sit here and confidently say that all of the hassle in the world could not bring me to rethink that decision.
Orchestrating "abroad" is difficult enough, what with passports, Visas, fingerprinting, and figuring out how on earth you're going to fit four months of your life into two 50 pound suitcases.
It is unsurprising therefore, that many students are inclined to forgo less-popular, more complicated, non-Loyola programs.
For anyone out there who feels the same combination of interest and laziness that I did towards a non-Loyola program, I urge you, beg you, to do yourself a favor, and select a program based on its destination rather than its general ease. I will soon forget the annoyance of attempting to look for Loyola off-campus housing while sitting in a computer lab in Kensington, but I will always remember stepping out my front door every morning and finding myself in the thick of London.
Assuming I eventually get my act together, get a job, have a family, make monthly payments on a mortgage: it is entirely possible and probable that I will never get another opportunity to live overseas and to travel the way I did during my time abroad.
It is a reality I can live with solely because I am so satisfied with the way I lived out my first European experience. It wasn't easy, but it was deeply, profoundly worth it.
College is short, but time spent abroad is shorter: treat it accordingly.
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