What is the most important thing you learned abroad?
I learned how strong I am. My life was so comfortable and easy growing up and I never had to struggle to do anything, for the most part. So many things shape you while you're traveling and you get to see yourself through your own eyes for the first time - because no one you know is around to project an image of you that they have.
You really get to know yourself while you're abroad. Teaching a classroom full of kids in a small Costa Rican school, washing your laundry in a bucket on your rooftop, hostel hopping and sharing rooms with 5 - 10 people. All of these things test your limits and almost always you come out on the ender end - feeling invigorated that you conquered all of that.
What was the hardest part about going abroad?
The hardest part of being abroad had everything to do with the timing of my gap year. I took my freshman year of college off to travel with Frontier, so it was really weird for me to be leaving the country for this amount of time, while everyone else was just heading to college.
Don't get me wrong, I was completely excited about taking a gap year, but going abroad at 18 was really hard because I was so much more homesick than all of my travel friends who were older than me. So, getting used to being in these entirely different places and trying to navigate that, was a huge challenge.
What made this experience unique and special?
For me, having never left the country before or ever traveling without my family for more than a week during high school, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Going from Costa Rica, to Brazil, to Europe all in a span of 8 months was mind blowing. I went from never traveling out of the country to seeing two different continents and visiting a dozen cities.
This experience can't be chalked up to one or two things. So many different factors ranging from the people I was living with to the cultures I was immersed in made it completely unique and special.
What is one piece of advice you'd give to someone going on your program?
Remember that home is always going to be there. You're probably going to get homesick and miss your friends and feel uncomfortable for a while but stick with it and milk this experience for all its worth.
I left my program early while in Costa Rica because I was incredibly homesick and in retrospect I often wonder how my journey would have played out had I stayed for the full length. Try your hardest to just live in the moment and be completely in tune and content with where you are.