Thoughts on Vandy, while abroad…
When you first get to Vanderbilt, you make new friends and all the while you’re still sending your friends from high school random text messages and trying to Skype them as much as possible…and while this changes to some extent for everyone, the real shocker is when you realize that over vacations (or maybe while you’re abroad), you suddenly realize that you’re spending just as much time, if not more, trying to keep in touch with you friends from Vanderbilt.
I suppose it goes without saying that in college you will form lifelong friendships, but for me, at least, this realization didn’t hit with full force until I started sending postcards back to the US from France. Suddenly, along with my family and my best friends from high school, I was searching for the addresses of Vandy friends studying abroad, Vandy friends from my work-study job, Vandy friends from the radio station, WilSkills, and OutdoorRec, etc…and even some professors who I knew would appreciate a postcard from a certain monument or city in Europe.
Whoa! — when did that happen?
Studying abroad is something I suggest for every undergraduate student. It is definitely one of the best choices I have ever made and luckily for me, the programs at Vanderbilt are all great! Abroad, I have made new friends from various universities, have discovered more about myself (hey, it may be cheesy, but it’s also true!), an have learned more than I expected about different cultures. Abroad, I have also learned to appreciate more my life in the US, and my academic life at Vanderbilt.
I love it in southern France, but I also cannot wait to have phenomenal senior year back at Vanderbilt!