More often than not, college students overlook almost every opportunity they are given to study abroad. This, of course, usually happens to those of us who start panicking over the fact that we’re halfway done with college and still haven’t chosen a major.

That’s acceptable. Stop freaking out.

My school, the University of Dallas, is well known for its study abroad program in Rome. We have a beautiful campus that’s located just southeast of the ancient city, and for any high school senior, this sounds like a dream come true. When I was a young, innocent 18-year-old, this was certainly a selling point for me, and it encouraged me to apply to UD as quickly as I could. However, as the semesters went by, my course load got heavier and heavier, and I ended up not going to Rome. I was pretty upset about it, but I kept telling myself that I would have plenty of time to travel once I graduated. Now, however, I’m a senior in college, and I’m starting to think that I might’ve been wrong about that. I plan to go to vet school after I graduate (which means that I’ll be a student for at least another four years), and traveling during that time would be nearly impossible. Don’t start feeling pessimistic, though.

As freshmen, we’re open to anything. We sign up for dozens of different clubs when the activity fairs begin, and we participate in just about every school event there is. I don’t see a problem with this, though. I like to think that being open to new experiences is a very important step to take while growing and developing as a person, so go ahead. You sign up for that Dungeons & Dragons club. To tie this in with my previous point, however, I think it’s easy for students to lose their optimism. Once they begin experiencing the difficulty of those upper-level courses, and the theses begin to fall upon them, they become narrow-minded. Graduation becomes the sole concern for most students (as it did for me), and in a sense, we become ignorant toward those new experiences that were once so exciting. Trust me, I understand that it can be very difficult to remain optimistic as a college student, but I’m here to remind all of you that everything will be okay. Once I began telling myself this, I let out a huge sigh of relief, and all of those opportunities suddenly became interesting to me again. Finally, as a result, I decided to study Spanish in Costa Rica during my last summer as an undergraduate.

After spending an entire month in the Spanish-speaking country, I can confidently say that the experience was 100% worth it. Many of us encounter people or professors who constantly encourage us to study abroad while we still can, and after experiencing it myself, I completely understand why. I didn’t become an entirely new person (as one misconception leads some people to believe), but it most definitely changed my perspective of the world. I bonded with many of my classmates, and I created wonderful memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life. In addition to all of that, my roommate and I had a lovely host family that made us feel right at home.

My class and I studied at the Tecnológico de Costa Rica, or TEC, and even the students were wonderful. They were more than happy to help us learn Spanish, and we even tested their English. Needless to say, we all had a great time. Our program director, Gaby, showed us many beautiful parts of Costa Rica as well. We walked through ancient churches, toured coffee farms, and saw many different historical landmarks. The university, TEC, made the experience one that I will never forget, and I would love to visit the country again someday.

Now that you’ve (briefly) heard about my experience, I hope that all of you at least consider studying abroad. College can be rough, but it’s a life-changing experience. Try new things before those four years are up because you don’t want to spend the rest of your life knowing that you could’ve run through the mountains of Costa Rica with 800 dogs. Yes, I did that.