Yes, sacrifice is what you must do when you are abroad. You must leave all familiarities behind and go out into the adventure of the unknown. You end up learning a lot about yourself (and many other things) and growing in ways you never could if you had remained home. It’s a bittersweet thing, really.

So I missed the Super Bowl - but I monitored the coverage on FoxSports.com and watched all the commercials online. It’s a blessing what innovation and technology has done for the study abroad experience!  Before, you would have only relied on writing letters via ‘snail mail.’ But now I can listen to my hometown radio station streams, watch television episodes on YouTube, IM with my friends and family (even see each other with webcams), talk with them on Skype for free, call them also on my cell phone for next to nothing, receive calls from home for free, and then have the luxury of living in Europe and studying abroad.

I love American football, though. Having lived outside Philadelphia for most of my life, the Eagles are in my blood - even though I don’t mind rooting for the Panthers. I was just glad that neither of them made it to the Super Bowl (sorry!) or else I would have really been upset for missing the game.

There are so many other amazing study abroad opportunities available at Western. It pains me not to jump at all of them, but I have been in school so long that I had to delete courses from my community college transcript just to keep within the 140 credit mark.  Plus, I will be graduating in August and most of the summer programs run past the graduation date. I urge anyone who loves to learn and experience new cultures and places to look into the International Programs and Services opportunities either online or at their office in the Belk building. And I congratulate all of those who have already studied abroad.