Skip to content
- Throughout my time abroad, I found myself confused and befuddled regarding either the situation around me or even the conversations occurring around me. To highlight one of these instances I would go back to the first couple weeks of my experience abroad. When I traveled to London I expected to be immersed amongst British students and even living with them. Yet I soon found out that was not precisely the case. After my first couple weeks, I realized that almost all the students who like me lived on campus, and were also study abroad students, most of which were from schools within the US. I came to study abroad to be immersed in a different culture with different kinds of people, yet I was immersed in a different culture with the same kinds of people. This was confusing to me but ended up being a blessing in disguise as I met many friends throughout the process.
- From the experiences I gained in the UK I believe I can now live life more confidently with myself and walk around confidently knowing exactly who I am as a person and what I value. Time away from Rollins gave me space and time to think about many things in my life which was a great help in putting things into perspective. I will even use the confusion I experienced in the previous answer to not be standoffish with people even if I think I may not like them. I learned to always give everyone a chance and not make preemptive judgments.
- I think someone from my host culture would view my experience as very odd and may even not know why I would do something like it. I got asked multiple times over my time in England, “Why would you leave Florida to come to London?” and whilst this may be true in terms of leaving good weather for bad, it is not true in terms of the people and experiences I left at Rollins to gain new experiences and new friendships in a city that I grew to love so much.
- These reflections prepare me for conflicts in the future because I believe my experience abroad has made me much more level-headed and able to think about a situation and how what I do or say will affect said situation and also the people in it before I say or do anything. I think this mindset will help me greatly in avoiding conflict when it is not necessary and also will help me to be happier as I will firstly not be engaging in conflict if it is not necessary and I will also be able to clearly see which people in my life are good for me and which ones are not. Being able to see these things and think about the consequences of each of my words and actions will help me to be mindful in everything I do and engage in.
