For students who haven’t traveled abroad, you know the feeling of scrolling through your friend’s picture’s thinking, “why the hell did I not take the opportunity to travel?” When I first came into college, I thought I was definitely going to be traveling abroad because I am the type of person who can’t stay in one place for a long amount of time and I have dreams of seeing as many places throughout the world as possible. Unfortunately, some things changed and I was not able to go abroad. I regret not looking into information, freshman year, and trying to plan my schedule based on where and when I would want to travel. So, for all college freshmen, my best advice is to look into studying abroad because I feel that I have missed an incredible experience. I regret not going abroad because:

1. The views that student’s pictures portray are amazing. Most of the pictures you see, you can tell that picture do not even describe how amazing these places are that students are seeing while they are abroad. Who doesn’t love to see beautiful places in other countries?
2. Change of scenery. Going to college, you see the same campus day after day and year after year. It feels so nice to escape campus, every once in a while, and explore new scenery… The perfect place to do this is studying abroad and exploring what it is like going to college for a semester or J-term in another country.
3. Traveling connects you with completely new and different people. I love meeting new people and studying abroad is a great way to not only meet new people but also learn about their way of life.
4. You become more cultured and have a better understanding of the world. Although you may learn about the world staying on your specific college campus, you will learn more about how it really works in other places. You learn about cultures and beliefs of other people.
5. You find yourself. Many people who have gone abroad come back saying how their travel experience has changed their life. College can be a hard time finding yourself because you have so much going on and always meeting new people and making all these decisions about your future, but do not have much alone time. But when you go abroad, you are traveling on your own and seeing how other parts of the world work, which helps you to decide where you fit and what exactly you want to be doing.
6. Who doesn’t love adventuring? Not only are you traveling to the specific country that you will be attending college in, but you have the opportunity to travel to many other countries and places that you may never have the chance to go again.

Yes, I regret not studying abroad because I love traveling and think it would be a great time to experience places with students from other colleges. One can still travel, even if it’s not abroad, but it creates a different experience. Learning about the world is done through experience and having spoken to many students who have been abroad, they feel the same.