Global Citizenship and the Purpose of Study Away: Angers (AS)

The hike back from Loch Ness

Anyone who knows me knows that I have been waiting to study abroad since I was young. I always wanted to study in France and continue learning other languages to allow me to study other languages. But why did I, specifically, want to study abroad? It all started when I went to visit my oldest sister when she was studying abroad. I thought it was so cool that she could speak another language and that she was perfectly comfortable doing so. I was her shadow growing up, and therefore wanted to be like her. So now as I sit in my university’s library in France writing this blog amongst other homework, I sit back and think again, why am I here? I wanted to come to really focus on my French capabilities and also see what it was like to 1.) Live FAR away from home, and 2.) Live in a French home. So far I can comfortably say that my French has improved immensely. I can communicate with ease and I am comfortable traveling alone for I know that I can be the one to communicate with others in this foreign country. Now this country has become my second home now.

            Out of the three prompted documents, I have to argue with the document titled “American Students Abroad Can’t be ‘Global Citizens’” by Talya Zemach-Bersin.

Stonehenge

 The reason I need to argue this document is because this in one person’s person abroad experience. I believe that her situation abroad is too different from mine. She voyaged into the developing world and that was her own choice, she should have been well aware of what the circumstances were of the places she was traveling to. Her outlook is very pessimistic on the entirety of the study abroad experience. The most beneficial part of study abroad is learning about another culture and how they react to any and everything around them, including us Americans. Yes, we have an enormous privilege, but Talya seems to view that as a bad thing because of how the way people treated her when she was in her host countries. Often times I feel as though Americans here are generalized as not knowing more than one language and also that they are all obese, but this is obviously not the case, for there are two sides to every story, and she merely gave one side, which happened to, from my view, be negative towards Americans abroad. I personally plan on living abroad, probably here in France. How one feels towards a country and their culture varies from one person to the next. I love my host country, and I also love and I am proud to be an American.

In Edinburgh, Scotland

            My experience will not be shared like her experience though. Yes I had some downsides, those were inevitable, but my life here is completely different from my life at home. I live with a new family, new friends, new country, new language, new food, I have all of these new things, and I embrace every new challenge that comes my way. These obstacles will merely make me grow as a person. I will be able to tell my loved ones and my future interviewers that I am a changed person thanks to all of the things I learned when studying abroad. I will not be afraid to explain the bad times for they will be made up by all of the wonderful things that have happened in these past two and a half months.

            I will be able to take away more of my education, a new language, a new culture, a new way to embrace life when I come home. This has also made me realize that there are some things in every culture that are irreplaceable. These things can be like my friends at home, the bread and cheese here in France, and all of the little things that make each place unique. I am split in half right now, as I am in the middle of the semester and therefore half way through my abroad experience. I feel so excited to go home, but I also feel like I need to be here and discover more of what France has to offer. I know I will eventually have to go home. But I will also have to come back here to my second home