Global Citizenship and the Purpose of Study Away- Bangalore, India (NPG)

            Study abroad is about putting yourself out of your comfort zone and opening your self up to new experiences. We live in a society that expects everyone else to conform to our beliefs, ideals and ways of life.  By studying abroad we have to, to a certain extent, conform to our host country’s way of life. In doing so we are able to better understand the world in a way different from what we have grown up with. Study abroad allows for us to open up our minds to possibilities that we have never thought about before as well as promoting a cross-cultural understand between ourselves and the people we interact with in our host country.

            Being in India there are so many aspects of life that are just fundamentally different from the United States. I believe that it is going to be really hard to explain my experiences to my friends and family when I get home. When I have spoken to them in the past couple months and they ask me about India I do my best to explain things that I have done and experienced but there is no way that they have gotten the full impact of the experience I have had. I do not even think that I have a full understanding of what my study abroad experiences mean and I still won’t for a long time after I have returned.

            Being a global citizen is something that takes hard work and taking a semester to study abroad is a step in the right direction. The most important part of this experience is seeing the world through a context other than a US or western context. The understanding that what we as westerners in developed nations see as the right answer for ourselves may not be the same for someone in India or the rest of Asia. Being a global citizen is about working with others from around the world and understanding that everyone has something to contribute and there is not one right answer, studying abroad and coming into contact with other cultures and societies is a large step in achieving this.