University of Denver Study Abroad – Page 32

The University of York is surrounded by city walls that will make for excellent walks during the day.

The realization that I’ll be going to study abroad at the University of York in England for an entire year come mid-September still hasn’t quite sunk in. Most of my prep work is done, but every now and then the gravity of an exchange year starts to hit me.

There are a couple of questions that have been running through my head regarding this whole thing, and I thought I’d answer myself here.

Aren’t you scared to go abroad for a whole year?

Of course I am. I’m equal parts terrified and jumping-up-and-down excited about the whole thing. I love to travel and would like to believe I do so quite well, but Colorado is my home and it will be very hard to only spend about six weeks in my home over the next year.

Won’t you miss your friends? Will they even be your friends when you get back?

Being who I am-a person who loves fiercely, hates rejection, and has lost several very close friends over the years-this is a real worry for me. But like always, the logical and emotional parts of my brain are messy housemates. Emotional me is crying that I’ll have an amazing time abroad and then come back with no friends. Logical me is remembering that one of my dearest friends from high school lives a couple of thousand miles away from me and yet he’s still my best friend. We don’t get to talk to each other near as often as we would like, but when you have a friendship as genuine and as sweet as that, it’s not easily broken. And I think I can say the same for my friends here at DU. We won’t get to talk nearly as often as we do now living together and seeing each other every day. But they are special enough to me that I won’t just drop them, and I know they won’t do that to me either.

You’ll be doing an awful lot of travelling alone. Doesn’t that scare you?

It absolutely does! But after spending a few weeks way outside my comfort zone in southern Kenya, I learned that big risks pay off massive dividends. The payoff doesn’t negate any of the rough parts in the middle-loneliness, getting sick, missing home, wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake in a particularly dark moment. I felt all of those things in Kenya. But it was and remains a trip I hold close to my heart. And I’m ready for the bits where I travel alone. I won’t be completely alone, as I’ll be meeting up with friends in pretty much every place that I go to. Taking intentional time alone and journaling and actually going and doing things (museums, hikes, that sort of thing) by myself help me to grow content with my own company and to get to know my own head. Those are vitally important, as again, I’m the one who has to live with that stuff on a daily basis.

The bottom line is that come fall, I will be embarking on a crazy scary year. But I’m doing it on purpose. Doing scary stuff on purpose is pretty good for you, I think. Keeps a girl on her toes.

-Faith Lierheimer, DUSA blogger

You head east.

Yep, you break that sacred, unspoken Coloradoan rule and turn your back on the mountains. They’ll forgive you- eventually. You head past the supposedly haunted Mary Reed and the ever illustrious UHall, dash across University Blvd with the sorority sistahs and assorted other Greek and (non-Greek)-life bros making their trek home to Josephine St., and scurry the final block. Inside, you blow on your frost-tinged fingertips; the bright sunshine, while irritatingly blinding, not quite up to doing battle with the potent partnership of a bracing November air and breeze whose bite is slightly more than playful. You’ve almost made it.

So down the stairs you go.

And there it is. In the slight maze that is the I- house, sequestered in the basement – though almost every DU student will make the pilgrimage- is The Wall.

Have you not seen The Wall? Well what are you waiting for?! An invitation? An introduction? Please.

Covered in paper, countries you forgot existed alongside those you’ve always dreamed of visiting are represented. It stands, a memorial to adventure – both those already had and those yet to come. Oh holy Hades, how are you going to choose?

One could throw darts. One could meticulously read every minute detail on every sheet, do extra research, and draft elaborate pro/con pie graphs. One might be better off with the darts. You could turn to the Travel Channel and announce to your friends you will be traveling to whatever country first appears – only to have a show about alligator rastlin’ in the Florida Everglades helpfully and gracefully segue from commercial. Perhaps not. If only you could study abroad everywhere at once – but that might defeat the purpose.

If like me you’ve dreamed of the Southern hemisphere stars twinkling above you, finding Mt. Olympus, and kissing the Blarney stone, you’re about to find yourself at a bit of a crossroads. For me, the best decision is the one that has a little bit of fate thrown in. I managed to narrow down my choices to two. By weeding out places I would have other opportunities to visit and coming to the conclusion that what I was looking for was A Different study abroad experience, my dilemma became centered around Germany and Ecuador. But from there I couldn’t choose. So I submitted both applications not in any particular order, and waited for the study abroad office’s decision. Ecuador, here I am.

We easily forget that at DU the question is not usually if you are study abroad, but where. I was sitting in class when I was struck by the rather late-coming realization that the 30 people surrounding me would none be in the U.S. come fall. I will have friends in Bolivia, Mongolia, South Africa, China, Belgium, and more. Whatever your decision and however you choose to make it, what will be, will be. Few have returned with anything but silly grins splitting their faces, secret adventures in their hearts, and a vow to go again.

And now I stand in the 2^nd highest capital city in the world, the equator just to my north, and 4 ½ months between me and Denver, Colorado. All those inspirational travel posters make so much sense now.

Adventure awaits! Westward (or Southward) ‘Ho! Hasta la vista, baybay!

Maddie Doering, DUSA blogger

Quito, Ecuador – MSID Ecuador

Tag: University of Denver Study Abroad

Doing scary things on purpose

The Wall