Studying Abroad: An American Experience

Published April 10, 2007

By Jen Nolan

The study abroad office at UVM is a disorienting 15 square-foot (windowless) room where brochures for seemingly infinite programs, countries, and schools participate in a sly, heated, and (profitable?) competition.

I am standing in the office for the 5th time this year, comparing the most meaningful aspects of each program as they are illustrated in glossy color on the cover of each brochure. I’m calculating just how many teeth I can count on the smiling students who seem to be thinking, “Wow! This program/country is perfect for me!”

My reasons for studying abroad make up a scattered, contradictory, and somewhat idealized list of things I want to find in a single location.

I would like to reap the rewards from all those torturous years of conjugating verbs that never quite “rolled off the tongue.” There is the lure of a more lenient drinking age and the exotic thrill of foreign flirtation (once I’ve figured out how to work the language barrier to my advantage of course). Plus, I have convinced myself that I am fed up with American culture and desperately need to experience something besides reality TV.

My first thought was to go to Africa. The radically different culture and way of living would definitely shake up my perspective a bit. Until I heard a friend’s story of how the normal punishment for stealing is immediate death by whatever means is most convenient at the time. Going on this rumor alone, I started to think that maybe the entire continent of Africa would be a little too drastic of an adjustment for me.

Next I considered Ireland. I’m 100 % Irish, and maybe I’d have time to hang out with some relatives and we could complain about how horrible the accents are in “Boondock Saints” while we sit in an authentic pub. But upon realizing that this little scenario included a long lost family I have yet to meet, and had nothing to do with my life as a student there, I lost interest.

America’s not glamorously religious. That was the appeal of India—the prevalence of Hinduism, and how it permeates so much of their culture, as depicted in the brochures.

I’ve become a connoisseur of study abroad literature, and I love a great margin quote to the effect of: “This was the best experience of my life. I’m a totally different person; before I was running from the law, now I’m never going back home and I’m accepting the Nobel Peace Prize next week. Thanks, {insert program name here}.”

Yet somehow, after all my research, I chose the second most typical destination for college students abroad: New Zealand (Australia is first). The brochure for my program had a killer combination of cover features: an exotic landscape + attractive student + student doing something they could never imagine doing in America. Plus there is the common language, Foster’s brewery, and access to MTV Real World.

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