Study Abroad Is Not for Everyone

Adding three to the “staying” side and another three to the “going” side, I recently opened a spreadsheet to keep track of the friends who I will (not) see as often around campus throughout junior year. It was only once I began to record my friends’ impending study abroad adventures that I accepted the truth about my own college life: I will not sacrifice a semester at school in order to go abroad. 

I feel this looming sadness as a sophomore at Georgetown University, which has a particularly global-minded student body. Studying abroad at Georgetown feels more like a rite of passage than the right opportunity for a certain kind of student. About 16 percent of bachelors-earning undergraduates nationally will study abroad, while Georgetown boasts a 57 percent abroad rate. In our School of Foreign Service, the percentage hovers around 80 percent. For this reason, many Georgetown students no longer waste their precious breath to ask if a peer plans to study abroad. Rather, students ask each other where they are traveling and for how long. 

Whichever way the conversation goes, the student staying on campus becomes accustomed to bearing the burden of proof for his own decision. For some, foreign travel is just so obviously enriching for their career paths that they could hardly imagine it not applying as clearly to their friends’ journey. Others just cannot fathom how anyone could opt out of taking a semester-long adventure.  

The typical student who chooses not to go abroad is one familiar with hearing that he will regret it for the rest of his life. The language of regret is hardly unique to studying abroad. So many decisions to abstain from what others are doing are vulnerable to self-doubt when they are expressed. What was once an assured decision sounds uncertain in the voice of a student who has lost his confidence. Sometimes pursuing an unconventional path for the sake of being true to oneself actually requires as big a leap — as much self-introspection and reliance — as chasing adventures on the other side of the world. There is more than one way to realize our full selves in college, including by learning to trust our own instincts.

Especially at Georgetown, it is no coincidence that most students study abroad during their junior year. When I saw the peak of academic rigor, my junior fall, in the distance, I promised myself that I would instead opt for the rolling hills of Florence, Italy. Little could be better than escaping dining hall food for cacio e pepe, all while augmenting my pre-law G.P.A. with classes that past villa dwellers had told me were a breeze. 

But the longer I waited for my once-in-a-lifetime study abroad experience to begin, I realized that college itself was a life-altering experience. The opportunity to live abroad for such an extended period of time may never come again, but college also feels quite precious. Friends, classmates, and professors are an inevitable part of student life, but they only form a community when they live and work in close proximity. Study abroad professors offer valuable knowledge, but they are still unlikely mentors when compared to a professor whose office is just a short walk away from a residence hall back on campus. 

Even if abroad coursework covers major or general education requirements, there may be more that a student wants out of their degree. A degree can become more than an arrangement of words on a diploma since unique classes can imbue a student’s coursework with personal significance. Many college students still remember the drag of taking obligatory classes in high school and revel in realizing the academic freedom that was long withheld from us. 

That abroad coursework even covers major or general education requirements is also never guaranteed. For up to a week before new semester class registration, thousands of students are piecing together the right classes with the best professors, to fit the right requirements at the right time. For students like me who double major with a minor, a good semester schedule is already almost as puzzling as it gets in college. Nothing kills a good study abroad plan quite like discovering that two required classes conflict timing-wise and that overloading credits is the only excruciating solution. 

Students can find themselves studying abroad despite these constraints, but the pain tolerance should be higher for students whose course of study necessitates a journey abroad. If I was a Classics major, my degree path would feel incomplete without a semester abroad in Italy. As of now, I remain convinced that Washington D.C. is the right place to further my education and experience in American politics. 

Leading with what convinces me is enough to feel satisfied with my own decision to stay, even as so many people I care about are going. There is some irony here: the study abroad decision that I would most likely regret would have been prompted by an exogenous fear of regret itself. If I ever go abroad, I want it to be because I led myself there, not because I mistook someone else’s path for my own.

Aaron Polluck is a sophomore at Georgetown University studying government. He writes for The Georgetown Voice.