Korea has always played a big part in my life, long before I ever set foot off that airplane at ICN in August of 2015. My grandmother, born in North Korea, fled to the South at a young age with a few of her siblings and lived in the port city of Busan before meeting…
Studying abroad – for me I saw it as an opportunity to live my life in a completely new way, a test, and a chance to develop a new perspective on the world. It had the potential to be an unparalleled experience, but there were so many questions to tackle first. Where would I go?…
Before May 15th, my view of the world was extremely limited. Sure, I had seen the bathroom where Elvis died in Memphis, TN, walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge where Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others began their march to Montgomery in Selma, AL, and even touched the chair William Faulkner sat in when…
From early childhood, I had seen pictures and videos of other countries and the beauty they held. The thought of visiting another county multiple hours over the ocean was a farfetched thought for me but I was determined that one day I would get to visit Europe. I dreamt about the adventures and experiences that…
I’m here to tell you about one of the best years my life spent in Chile. You are probably thinking right now where is Chile? That’s a random country, why there? Chile is the longest country in the world. It lays on the west coast of South America with the sky scraping, snowcapped Andes Mountains to the…
Over the intercom, the train conductor announced that we would soon be arriving in Grenoble, France. It was the middle of June and through the windows of the compartment, I could see snow-capped mountains peering through thin clouds. My heart quickened and I suddenly became extremely anxious. What if my host family didn’t like me?…
They say that home is where the heart is, and I found that to be true when I was in Vienna this past summer. I was initially really nervous about studying abroad. I’d never been out of the country before (aside from my 5 month stint in Vietnam before I was adopted when I was…
For me, my time in Vienna will be remembered as a time of personal growth and self-understanding. During my program, my German skills improved tremendously but more importantly I felt more connected with others. The language barrier proved troublesome at first, but as time progressed communication became easier. My favorite nights were those when my…
Lava came spewing down the side of Mount Etna at a pace that indicated imminent doom. In my mind this was the beginning of the end and the outcome would be just as dismal as Pompeii thousands of years ago. When I decided to Study Abroad in Taormina, Sicily I didn’t know what to expect….
I knew from the first moment that I began to research Spain as the country of my choice for a high school Spanish project that I absolutely wanted to travel there one day. It seemed so far away and a little bit scary to my small-town mind, but it was something I longed to do,…