I spent a couple hours the other day doing something that shamefully is not all that out of the ordinary for me: robotically clicking through photo albums on Facebook. The difference on this particular occasion was that in contrast to my usual perusing (read stalking), the albums I was focusing on this time had a particular theme, shared a common thread. Whether initially aware of it or not, I realized when I was done that every album I had selected (some were friends' handiwork, others' those of perfect strangers) had been posted by people studying abroad.
I was at first, I must confess, rather "weirded out" by myself. I felt like an ex-football player trying to fit into his high school lettermanís jersey, ignorant or uncaring of the fact that the thing was now two sizes too small.
After all, I had my stint abroad: took my own shots in front of the Eiffel Tower, smiled cheesily in front of Big Ben, proudly held up my enormous beer stein at Oktoberfest. The pictures I was looking though, for the vast majority, were ones I could have easily found in my own albums. Why was I hunting down these rogue albums when I had perfectly acceptable shots of my own?
After a period of general unease I had to admit it to myself: though I cannot imagine what I would change about my abroad experience to make it fuller, I still deeply, presently miss the time I spent overseas. And if lessening that ache means aimlessly scanning a borderline acquaintances' Rome 09! album, then so be it.
This time last year, I was "studying" in the shanty little town some of you may know as London, England.
For four months I drank tea, road double decker red buses, and didn't blink an eye when typing things like "colourful" when writing formal assignments.
I laughed myself to tears listening to drunk Britsí attempting to impersonate American accents (for the record, the default voice in this scenario is a cowboy-like drawl), ran every morning past Princess Diana's old digs in Kensington Gardens, and attended class daily with students from all over the world.
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.
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