For more than 20 years I have been traveling the world, preferring often to spend a year or two in different countries rather than to just visit as a tourist. It has become a big part of my identity as an adult and shaped how I see the world and myself.
My first taste of this amazing life was when I was 19 years old. I was selected among a small group of college classmates to spend a year abroad. This was long before people could travel the world vicariously through social media like Facebook, Instagram and Weibo. In order to see a place, you had to go there and experience it firsthand.
I was raised in a middle-class family and couldn’t afford to travel around the world the way I wished I could. My only exposure to the world outside was through letters I wrote to pen-pals from over a dozen countries as a kid, and from television. One thing I loved on television growing up were the hilarious British comedies that aired every Saturday night on my local public television station. So when I got the chance to apply for a study abroad program, I chose London. (Plus, I spoke the language.)
Junior Year Abroad, or JYA, is a program that allows American college students to study in another country during their junior year, usually through his or her own university or through a university that has a study-abroad program. JYA has been around for nearly 100 years.
In 1921, a young professor at the University of Delaware named Raymond W. Kirkbride proposed the idea of sending students to study in another country. Kirkbride was a World War I veteran and saw the ugly side of humanity through war. Yet he spent time in France during the war and enjoyed the people and culture. Later, as a professor, he thought that sending students to other countries would help promote cross-cultural understanding. So, in 1923, Kirkbride organized a trip for eight juniors from the University of Delaware to sail to France. Today, the JYA program is offered to thousands of students across the United States and around the world.
Living abroad can be exciting, scary and challenging. I thought it would be easier because I spoke the language, but I relished the little differences between the British and American culture and language. Instead of ground beef they called it “mince”. Instead of garbage they called it “rubbish”. Once, at Christmas, I went to a supermarket and asked if they had egg nog. Egg nog is a very creamy drink seasoned with nutmeg and is delicious and traditional to drink in some American families. The man at the supermarket told me he had never heard of it, and I was really surprised!
I also learned that in England, they spell words differently than in the U.S. In British spelling, they put a “u” in words like favor to make it “favor” and an “s” in words like analyze to make it “analyze”. I was able to adapt quickly to this new way of writing since I was submitting papers all the time for my classes.
Academically, I got to take classes that weren’t offered at my college back home. I took a film class and was introduced to the “classics” with works by Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. I had a course in sociology and learned about the native people of Papua New Guinea.
But there were also challenges that year too. One of my classes was called “Europe Since 1870”. In the U.S., I would have expected an introductory history class, but in England, I was supposed to have already known the history; now was the time to analyze it. That meant I not only had to learn the history as I went along, but also I had to try to write a paper explaining why certain events happened as they did. Once, a teaching assistant who did not take kindly to my misunderstanding of an assignment berated me in front of a fellow student one day. I remember going back to my student house and crying afterwards for being so stupid. Of course, I know now that I was thrown into the deep end, in a completely different and far more challenging environment, and it was natural that I wouldn’t understand everything easily. Despite this, I don’t regret anything about my time in London. Even through painful experiences, we learn to grow.
Sometimes the difficult times made me sad and homesick. But luckily that was outweighed by the amazing experience I had getting to know people from all over the world. I met dozens of interesting people from places like France, Greece and Germany in Europe, to Rwanda, Palestine and Australia. Learning how to make friends with people from different cultures and backgrounds was really fun, and these new friends helped put a face to the countries they represented.
Academically, because there are so many differences between the British and American grading systems, my overall grades were adjusted upwards to account for the degree of difficulty in acclimating to the British educational structure. In the end, I did pretty well, considering I was like a fish out of water in a totally new learning environment.
As I finished the academic year, I was torn inside about leaving London after such a transformative experience. I learned so much about myself as a young woman and an American. When I returned to my college for my final year, friends and professors saw a new me. I had more maturity and self-awareness that I hadn’t had before. It was difficult at first to adjust back to American college life, almost like I hadn’t had the most amazing year of my life and I was simply back for my senior year. But I know, inside, this was just the beginning of a future of world travel and a love of different people and cultures.
http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/2017-11/29/content_35123082.htm
