Studying abroad looks great on a resume. You can take unique classes and you gain cultural perspective you may not develop just by traveling for fun. But don’t do it just because it makes you look cool.
“Go abroad for selfish reasons,” Macy Lloyd, a current senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln said. “Whether you want to grow as a person, you need help figuring yourself out or you just want an adventure, you should study abroad for you.”
Macy spent a month studying in Maynooth, Ireland in the summer after her sophomore year of college, and her only regret about the experience is that she didn’t stay there longer.
During this month, she took an environmental politics course, traveled around Ireland on the weekends and learned that there’s no correct pair of shoes to wear on cobblestone.
As a strict planner and rule-follower, this trip started off as quite a challenge for Macy. She wanted to have fun with her friends, but she didn’t like never knowing quite what they would be doing.
When you travel abroad, you want so badly to have every minute planned to make sure you don’t miss out on anything, but in the end, the spontaneous adventures are often the most memorable.
On one particularly eventful weekend, Macy and her friends decided they wanted to kiss the Blarney Stone. After roaming the streets for half an hour trying to find a cab, they made it to the castle 15 minutes after admissions ended.
The gatekeeper let them in, provided they’d keep their promise to run to the top of the castle, kiss the stone, and run right back down before the grounds closed down 45 minutes later. They made it to the top and everyone (even germaphobic Macy) bent backward over the wall to kiss the stone, then they ran back down, spent a little too long admiring the grounds around the castle, made it out as the gates were closing and arrived in town just five minutes late for their group dinner.
“I don’t think I was quite ready for that unplanned adventure,” Macy said. “But the experience was beyond worth the stress and begging and running.”
Right after kissing the Blarney Stone. So proud of her.
No other trip was quite as exciting as the trek to Blarney Castle, but Macy also visited some national parks, the horse races, Cork, Killarney, Kilkenny and a few other small towns near Maynooth.
And while she enjoyed every place she visited, she fell in love with Kilkenny. She said the culture and history of the town immediately sparked her interest, and she wanted to know the story behind the abstract art in the town square and all of the brightly colored store fronts.
“The town was quirky,” she said. “You could just tell. But at the same time it stayed true to its medieval heritage, and I’d love to learn about how the modern style fits in with the town’s history.”
She wouldn’t have gotten to see towns like Kilkenny if she hadn’t taken up every opportunity her program offered to try something new.
Outside her classes in Maynooth, Macy with the college’s trampoline club–they literally jump on trampolines competitively–shot archery, watched old Irish films in the university’s commons and talked with locals in the town of 3,000.
The best way to experience everything she did in Ireland, Macy said, was just to put her phone down
Studying abroad was a completely new experience for her, and even though she prefers to plan ahead and be in control, she had to admit that sometimes you just need to let go.
“You can’t fully immerse yourself in another culture through a camera lens or the glass of your phone screen. Live in the moment and make the most of these opportunities you may never have again.”