THIS DEAL IS THE ICING
JAYHAWKS ABROAD
54 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD STUDY ABROAD
BROUGHT TO YOU BY STUDENTS WHO HAVE STUDIED ABROAD
1. Broaden your horizons
2. Become more independent
3. Learn to adjust in new environments
4. Eat authentic food
5. Develop personal relationships with locals and other travelers
6. Acquire new fashion tastes
7. Make new friends
8. Immerge in another culture
9. Meet various types of people
10. Appreciate other cultures, people, food, language, etc.
11. Appreciate things back home in the United States
12. Appreciate public transportation
13. Appreciate professor contact hours
14. Appreciate what you have
15. Become a better traveler
16. Acquire a lust for traveling
17. Learn to identify pickpocket techniques
18. Experience new forms of entertainment (music, movies, art)
19. Gain a new perspective
20. Become aware of global issues
21. Become globally competent
22. Learn to read maps and follow directions
23. Learn to be brave
24. Become a better planner
25. Becoming more cultured
26. Gain interest in/see new sports
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27. Learn to not to panic when lost
28. Become more confident
29. Become more patient
30. Explore the unknown
31. Meet indigenous people
32. Embark on new adventures
33. Experience beautiful nature
34. See wildlife in person
35. Learn to be healthier
36. Become more open-minded
37. Discover yourself
38. Encounter cultural differences
39. Shop abroad
40. Improve time management skills
41. Experience unique cultural events (festivals, holidays, etc.)
42. Become more mature
43. Learn to live with less
44. Learn how to budget
45. Learn/improve language proficiency
46. Become more educated to reach future goals
47. Connect curriculum to global issues
48. Be willing to learn more
49. Experience historical sites first-hand
50. Expand worldview
51. Expand portfolio/resume
52. Network internationally
53. Increase confidence for future interviews
54. Improve decision-making skills
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to call it—at the core it's all the same. We leave behind different things, for different amounts of time, and linger in different places but we all have that same fearful-hungry look behind our eyes if you stare at us for long enough. A fear of being still. A fear of staying stuck.
I stayed up late one night in a hostel talking to a Swedish girl, Glovanna, who used to work in a French circus and just recently quit her job teaching English in an international school in Costa Rica.
Burning she said. And I understood, but what a way to describe it—as if a flame has ignited within her and threatens to scorch her from the inside out if she doesn't keep on moving. We were all burning like that. We need to keep on running, self-producing wind to blow the flame low enough for long enough so we can protect ourselves from ever really being singed.
"I have this feeling," she said to me. "I wish I didn't It's like a burning."
“It’s very...” she continued. “I don't know the word I feel... en español es inquieto.”
"I don't know."
Well of course we are unquiet. If we weren't we would be stationary. We would be able to peacefully and indefinitely stay in our carefully constructed nests of friends, family, and familiarity. We wouldn't need to see and do more. We wouldn't need to fill ourselves up with jumps from water-falls and potential run-ins with wild boars. We saturate our minds so thoroughly we aren't left to think about anything else.
"Unquiet?" I offered.
"I think that maybe I am scared to get a job," she said. "That now I won't like any form of work."
New. More. Different. Dangerous. What does Lonely Planet say? Let's go. I'm down. Where are you guys from?
And she said this with so much sincerity, embarrassment, and fear that I wanted to cry for her. She was grasping at herself in the dark, unable to understand anything she was touching. The source of her burning was cold, shrouded, and unknowable—she was running on fear.
I understood her feeling, but burning like that felt so distant to me now, more vague than the memory of a dream. My burning wasn't a fire, dark and deadly, my burning had long been traded for a steady simmering coal. After being abroad for six months my burning had receded and could be contained, comfortably deep within my belly—even as I sat stationary. My coal still scorched a little, gently goading me to continue to go and
"I used to feel like that," I said.
do and see things, but it didn't feel so urgent anymore. I didn't need to run away for fear of not surviving. In fact, even though I was still traveling I didn't even really feel like I was running at all anymore. It was like reaching the sixth mile on a ten-mile run, when my body accepts that I might just keep running forever and seems to move without my agency.
In fact, with my little coal I feel like I could stop whenever I wanted to. Lay down roots. Grow nice and tall and deep. With branches intertwining so completely they were indistinguishable from the other trees around me. No really. I could. I can... just maybe not forever.
And many people burnt like me: the middle aged honey-mooners, some students in my program, the French/Spanish couple, the Spaniard in Costa Rican medical school.
More often than not, the most memorable people I met were middle-aged travelers. Not only because they were often quirky and shameless, but specifically because they were middle aged. They gave me the gift of showing me that I didn't need to be afraid of the future—that graduation isn't a death sentence and the journey never really has to end. Even if you can only steal weeks at a time out of your life, adventures can continue forever. Burning isn't just for the young and reckless. Running can be a lifetime sport.
And others burnt like Glovanna: the American marine-turned-builder-turned-actor-turned-divive-master-turned-sailor-wild-life-expert in Panama, the former German pro-skater who lost everything in a massive injury, the New Yorker who hasn't lived anywhere for more than a year in the last decade, the Canadian who sold his house and took a permanent leave of absence from his work.
traveling—more specifically studying abroad through KU—has quenched and sparked and transformed my burning. It's been the best and most challenging experience of my life. But unlike so many other things I have been a part of, traveling hasn't left me with nostalgia—looking back with my neck craned and eyes hungry for a lost image. Instead it leaves me springing forward, excited to jump into a bright new world. After traveling I'm no longer scared of getting a job or growing up, and—to speak against a popular cliché for my age group—I'm definitely not scared of graduating.
The burning in people ranges from wild fire to candle. It burns for days, weeks, months, years, and life times. It's fueled by fear, love, desire, and ambition. And it manifests itself in traveling.
Want more? Visit our blog at www.jayhawksabroad.dept.ku to read other posts written by our KU students studying abroad.
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