Students (or anyone) traveling abroad

I’ve just finished writing an article on things parents and students need to do before the student goes abroad for an extended period of time (insurance, bills, medicines, stuff like that).  It really brought home how much technology has made the world smaller.

 When I took my first trip abroad in 1982, it was the first time anyone in my direct family had been to Europe since our ancestors came over on the boat about 150 years ago.  (Not counting my Dad’s sojourn in North Africa and the Middle East during WW II.)  I can still feel the huge grin my face wore the entire flight from Atlanta to NYC.  

My program, through The Experiment in International Living program involved:

 *a few days of orientation outside Zurich (Where for the first time I encountered nude bathing at a lake.  And where my American co-travelers laughed at my Southern accent.),

 *then 2 weeks of homestay with families in the Bern area (I was with a sweet Mom and Dad in Muensingen.  The son chose to leave home on an extended vacation while I was there, so I went with the mom to buy groceries and had a lot of time to myself.),

*then 2 weeks of travel around Switzerland with our group (you can pretty much see all of Switzerland in 2 weeks!),

*then back to the families for another 2 weeks.

This trip changed my life.  I would never have moved out of my home town.  I would never have learned another language.  I would never have gone to graduate school.  I would never have met my husband.  I would not be the person I am today without this trip.

It wasn’t so much Switzerland, or the people in my group, or my homestay family — I think any trip abroad would have opened my eyes to the wide world beyond Hixson, Tennessee.  I think the changes came because I was totally away from home for that time period and I wonder if it’s the same for students today.

For instance, in 1982 I made phone calls home no more than twice in the 6 weeks — it cost about $3 a minute and only certain phones could call overseas.  I wrote letters instead.  Actual, pen on thin blue airmail paper letters.  They took 7 to 10 days to cross the Atlantic.  

If I’d been emailing and IM’ing and phoning daily, I’d have still been tied into whatever was going on at home day in and day out.  Instead I truly was away from home.  It was just me and a few clothes in a suitcase.  I had no physical clutter and no mental clutter.  No to-do lists and few people to talk to.  I had lots of time to think.  Who was I and what did I want out of life?  Pretty soon I knew I was headed down the wrong path in my life at home — not a bad path, but also not the path that was right for me.  When I came home I broke off an engagement, started learning German, and applied to graduate school.  Never once did I waver on my new course.  I’d had time to think it out and it was right.

I think it’s important to be fully present wherever you are physically.  It’s not easy to do.  And it’s not easy if Mom and Dad don’t help you cut those ties.  “Wherever you go, there you are,” as my Switzerland-trip group leader told us.  So for anyone who’s traveling, expecially in a foreign culture, I say — Be where you are.  Don’t let technology pull you between two worlds.