I recently came across a YouTube video about new discoveries at Pompeii, the famously buried city located at the base of Mount Vesuvius in southwestern Italy.
I’m a bit of a history nerd, but what really caught my eye was the fact that I’d been there before. I knew exactly what they were talking about in the video. I’d seen the cobblestone streets and the bakeries lining the main road. I’d even seen a partly excavated site where we were strictly monitored when taking photos and videos.
Frankly, I was giddy. Pompeii was no longer some abstract historical site. It was a memory. A place I’d gone before and marveled at in person.
I visited Italy for the first time in January and spent three and a half months studying abroad in Florence.
Before my experience abroad, I never even thought about spending such a long time in a foreign nation. I generally don’t like change and living in an entirely different world was something I knew I didn’t want to do.
I was having a bit of a tough time my sophomore year and realized that, not only would I not be missing out on anything in Pennsylvania, but I was actually missing out on everything by staying.
I can’t recommend spending a semester abroad enough. Living somewhere new, rather than simply visiting, is almost indescribable.
Delving into a new culture, a new language, a new atmosphere, new food, new friends and best of all, new experiences was something I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
Abroad, there are so many opportunities I never would have experienced otherwise.
I learned how to make pasta from scratch. I visited hundreds-of-years-old Sephardic (Spanish Jew) synagogues. I saw the Colosseum, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
I was even able to travel relatively cheaply to six different countries and see incredible sites, entirely foreign and unknown to me. Not to mention all of the places in Italy, I was fortunate enough to visit.
In Venice, Italy, I was able to ride a gondola and explore the city, miraculously still on the water.
In Split, Croatia, I was able to visit ancient Roman structures and swim in the most beautiful beaches.
In Prague, Czech Republic, I was able to see magnificent churches and even an infamous site from World War II.
But in Florence, I was able to truly live like an Italian. I shopped at Italian grocery stores, ate Italian food and rubbed shoulders with Italian people. I lived like a local, and boy, was it worth every anxious thought I harbored before I arrived.
The usual collegiate activities pale in comparison to the expansion of your mind and the breadth of your experiences while in another country.
The United States is my favorite country in the world. If my ancestors hadn’t been so fortunate as to receive one of the few visas reserved for Jews in the first half of the 20th century, I most likely wouldn’t be alive today.
But living in America, though such an incredible opportunity, means that we only see a small, albeit mighty, subsection of global cultures.
I’m not one for the forced and minutiae “diversity” I see being shoved down our throats in the United States. I appreciate being able to love our culture while marveling at the cultures of countries globally.
Some of my favorite culture shocks in Florence included the immense chivalry of Italian men, the coffee being served at practically all times of day and the simplicity of the food.
Without studying abroad, I never would have had the opportunity to spend enough time in any foreign country to live like a local. I never would have been so well-traveled (so hoity-toity I am!). I never would have had the time to do all of these things if it weren’t for study abroad.
I originally thought studying abroad meant missing out on a semester of college.
What I never could have imagined is the world I would’ve missed if I had stayed behind.
I urge everyone to think outside of their own worlds long enough to see other ones.
