For when the academy gets a little too dense…
Wanderlust is a culture. You hang a world map on the wall in your living room, you catch a few flights and take a few thousand photos, buy a pair of Chacos, and you suddenly have an undying to urge to travel limitlessly. Once, twice, even three times didn’t seem to be enough for me. During undergrad, I studied, interned, worked, blogged, photographed, pinned, and advised on all things related to studying abroad and travel. For many, studying abroad is an unspoken privilege of college that too many are intrigued by for questionable reasons. I hesitate to say wrong because it’s hard to identify everyone’s internal motivations, and the outcomes of their respective programs tend to supersede those first motives. Still, studying abroad has evolved as a collegiate cultural rite of passage. It fills the void that mainstream new media paints for twentysomethings who are all longingly desiring to be elsewhere than in their present situation. Despite the work I’ve done to further to the professional and academic outcomes of education abroad at my university, I still believe in the romance. I still buy into the wanderlust culture, if you will, simply because what happens when you travel and study abroad is truly magical.
Cover your ears and shield your eyes if you’re afraid of fun because I’m about to use the dirty words of the field. Education abroad is fun. It is transformative. It is life-altering. Travel is amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring, and majestic. The sites are not merely seen – they are heard, tasted, and touched. Simultaneously, travel is privileged – not to be forgotten. Travel is often also uncertain, unsettling, unnerving, and uncharted. Romance, as we know it, can likewise be quite as turbulent. It’s not wrong to maintain such a romanticized notion of faraway destinations, but the new study abroad student is coming to realize that education abroad is more than classrooms and clubs. While the postmodern student might not be able to justify their capstone course or internship credit by hiking Table Mountain or touring the Guinness Storehouse, their life, perspective, and attitude is forever impacted by what they encounter abroad. Education abroad doesn’t mean you necessarily crossed an ocean, lived out of a backpack for a year, completed a whirlwind tour of 15 countries, or were ever truly “immersed”. While those adventures are possible, education abroad is more a mental state of being – though geographically influenced – that more and more students throughout the world have the privilege of sharing. It means you have opened not only your mind, your bank account, and your textbooks to take your studies beyond domestic borders, it means you have opened your heart. Education abroad is just as complex as life – because that’s what students are still experiencing when they leave their home campuses, though they are living and loving in perhaps new ways than they ever imagined. What students get out of travel or study abroad isn’t purely material gain. Pashmina scarves, maps, flags, and academic credit are nice supplements, but travel is based on relationships. Relationships between people, animals, mountains, beaches, cathedrals, concert halls, and museums. They say everywhere you go and with everyone you meet you leave a little piece of your heart, and my heart is bursting with love for the opportunities and experiences I’ve had abroad.
