 "Photo: Tory Ellis '12")
About half of the junior class flees the campus every year for greener pastures in the form of over 50 foreign countries. They have many reasons, if not all good ones: some students are rebounding after the infamous “sophomore slump,” some are looking to extend their language skills beyond 300-level courses, some think it’s the standard thing to do, and some are just looking for a place that serves women under twenty-one years old.
No matter the reason, going abroad is a quintessential part of the typical college experience. For the Wellesley student, it may be the only part of the four years that is typical in any way. In choosing to attend an academically rigorous, all-women’s college, we are consciously foregoing the four years of beer pong and room parties that come to mind when thinking of college. Even the woman who accepts and embraces this truth can use some time off by semester six.
A semester abroad is a break. It’s a time to have adventures and write mediocre papers while crammed into coach on international puddle-jumpers. It’s a time to be reassured that the Wellesley bubble hasn’t made us incapable of functioning in a world that includes other genders. A semester—or, for the lucky ones, a year—in another country or on another campus gives a student whose life consists of eating dinner at five and studying until dawn a chance to live in the world of the typical collegiate.
Beyond the rather narrow argument that being abroad is a time to live among the stoplight party-goers, there is also the indisputable fact that undergoing any significant experience changes a person’s outlook on the world. For those who have never lived outside the U.S., living in another country for three months is just such a catalyst. Being in England helps us begin to understand the international reach of the American media; living in Amsterdam forever changes the idea of Santa Claus; studying in Greece broadens the palate to include spanakopita and being in Vietnam redefines our conception of “street food.” The geographic enormity of the U.S. encourages an understandably Ameri-centric worldview in its citizens. Being forced to look outward toward one’s home country from a semester abroad is bound to make a person more globally oriented, and in what we repeatedly refer to as an “increasingly globalized world,” this is a definite advantage.
There is also the simple fact that the opportunity to live in another country, with her housing and social network taken care of, may never again present itself to a student. It gets only more difficult for those with only American citizenship to live and work outside the country, and so many Americans will find themselves either unwilling or unable to leave in the future. Unwilling because of established families and mortgages, unable because of visa restrictions. The time to flee is now when brightly-colored brochures beg you to come belong to another culture for a quick 90 days.
Granted, some of this does not apply to certain Wellesley cohorts. There are those with dual citizenships, those who are going abroad by coming to Wellesley, and those who have spent so much time abroad that they no longer feel its novelty. But it does apply to the following: students who are frustrated with life on campus, students who are anxious about financing an adventure, and students who worry that a semester abroad will derail their painstaking accumulation of credits. If there is any possible way to do it, don’t let such worries stop you. Go abroad.
1 comments