Pro/Con: Studying Abroad

“You want to travel. Why are you not studying abroad?” my brother asked me last Thanksgiving.

“What! Because… and …I…no” I sputtered. The thought was ridiculous. Yeah, it would be cool. But I had this, and what about that. Too much. No.

…then came the list.

I am a fan of the pro/con list. I like the visual, and I like writing things down. So when I made the list for studying abroad, I had fifty reasons not to go and about three reasons to go with one of the three just being the word “Awesome!” Obviously, I should have quit there. But that whole annoying “how great of an opportunity” thing nagged me. Looking back at my list, forty-nine of those reasons were lame excuses, and crossing them off would mean that I would have to work harder than I wanted over the next two years in order to graduate in May 2012. Biting the bullet and wishing that I could punch that annoying nagging in the mouth, I painfully crossed out the lame forty-nine reasons not to go, leaving me with one reason that even the nagging shut up about— people.

I love my family more than my breath. I love my friends from home more than my sleep. But I do not see either of them during the school year; so “people” on the list were my friends at BSC. Studying abroad for my junior year is a once in a lifetime opportunity but so is living at BSC with my friends for that year. I did not want to go a year without being with them, laughing with them, hugging them. And if I left, then I would miss out and maybe fade away to return to a place where I was forgotten and therefore no longer wanted. That scared me. I like to think that I hold an importance in people’s lives, that the campus would drop a few noticeable degrees in energy in my absence.

But the truth is that most people will not notice my going and the campus will not be affected by my absence. And a bigger truth is that a friendship that cannot withstand nine months apart now, will not withstand past graduation. But there are a small number of friends who neither them nor I will toss each other into forgotten memory after we toss our hats into the air. Realizing who these people are is liberating. It allows me to focus. It allows me to leave, knowing that some things even the Atlantic cannot erode.

I will miss them. They will change. I will change. Life for both of us will continue. And that is okay. It diminishes nothing.

So I ask you, “Why are you not studying abroad?” Remember that with an exchange program, you can study abroad for the same or less amount of money that you are paying to study at BSC.

Why Am I Studying Abroad?

8-25-10 Hilltop News

Tea Time with Anna Rose

Foreign exchange students always fascinated me, and it wasn’t just the accent. It was because they contained something I didn’t—a courage and independence that allowed them to do something that I knew I never could—cross an ocean and land in the unknown to study abroad.

But as we all learn, life is funny.

Hi, I am Anna Rose. Junior. From Tennessee. Double major in theatre and English. And studying abroad at the University of Birmingham, England for nine months. This feature column will take you with me on my adventure from Birmingham to Birmingham.

Why am I studying abroad?

It is time for me to leave. I had always been content to be just where I was. Then last summer my family traveled west to Sedona, AZ. It was a new world. Red rock towered to a sky bigger and bluer than the one back home. Wild-eyed creatures skirted spiny succulents. And the air! The air made me want to run around naked. It was the air that Pocahontas would have painted with and the air that God breathes into the lungs of a child’s first breath. Suddenly, the Southeastern United States where I had lived contently for nineteen years felt like that tiny, extra pocket on a pair of denim jeans—a place too small for anything to fit inside for long.

When I returned from AZ, I heard hands slapping hollow drums in Zambia. I heard the Pacific crashing onto the shores of New Zealand. I heard squabbling voices rising above the bazaar in Pakistan. I heard the world, and the world said, “Come.” But all I could reply was, “I have nothing to give you. I have not finished my education. I have no skill.” Still, knowledge is an eternally binding marriage, and I could not stay in my pocket knowing what lay outside.

So I am studying abroad, because through studying abroad, I can earn my education; I can build my skills; and I can adventure through this wide, wide world. Finances and language barriers are determining realities, so my choices for studying abroad are limited to English-speaking universities that hold exchange programs with BSC. The University of Birmingham in England holds such an exchange program and happens to be a top-ranked university.

Exchange programs provide the most economical means to study abroad by allowing students to pay their home tuition, including financial aid, and the exchange school’s room and board. Translation: You can pay the same amount of money to study abroad as you are paying to go to BSC. Let me repeat that: What are you still doing here?

If you too want to study abroad, then go to the International Programs office on the second floor of Norton and talk with Mrs. Ledvina. Also, check out http://www.bsc.edu/academics/oip/index.cfm for BSC’s International Program information. Go. Now!