Going on a year abroad is an exciting prospect. If you’re getting ready for yours, no doubt half the people you know have told you how much of an “amazing time” you’re going to have.
They might be right, but after spending a semester in Bordeaux and another in Santiago, Chile I’ve learned a few things that your university might have failed to mention.
You’ll miss the UK’s admin obsession
You might feel conflicted about the computerisation of almost every single facet of your life, but it definitely makes doing a degree easier. Unfortunately, your host university abroad may not have got the memo.
Your initial enthusiasm will be punctured by queuing, form-filling, sitting in stuffy rooms, waiting, coming back tomorrow, and completing tasks that you’re accustomed to having done for you.
Sam Courtney-Guy, 21, a PPE student at Durham, found this to be true in Paris. “France’s reputation for crippling bureaucracy is well deserved,” he says. “Even if you painstakingly go through every one of your termly admin duties to try to stay on the ball, a member of staff will knock you off it by pointing out extra chores that were supposed to be obvious.”
You’ll re-live freshers’ week
Whether you breezed through your first week of university and secured BNOC (big name on campus) status instantly, or hated every minute of it, prepare to be sociable – especially if you’re dividing your year between two places.
Wallowing in your introversion won’t get you far on your year abroad. This is the time for clubs where entry costs more for men than women, trap remixes of the top 40, and spending time with people you have nothing in common with.
Any cultural capital you’ve built up at home counts for very little, and your carefully curated group of Wes Anderson-adoring, Balearic record-collecting friends aren’t here to save you – so you’re best off just getting involved.
Living abroad makes you reflect on what you like and dislike about home. I much prefer France’s fondness for fresh bread over our own devotion to Hovis; but I’ve come to appreciate the convenience of self-service checkouts when food shopping in Santiago.
“I used to spend quite a lot of my time moaning about the UK,’’ says Euan McCarthy, 20, a French and Spanish student in Bristol. “Politics and the weather are just two aspects of British life that I don’t like so much, but after living in socially conservative and largely dry Chile, I’m starting to miss the rain more than thought I would.”
At the risk of sounding wanderlust-afflicted, travel does broaden the mind and your new-found worldliness will probably impress people back at home.
The year abroad is fundamentally contradictory
Your year abroad will fly by, but it can really drag. Your mates are jealous of you, but a part of you would rather be at home. There are moments that make your studies feel worthwhile – when the language flows more naturally and you begin to understand the culture, and yet it can sometimes feel like you’re not working at all. These contradictions will define your time away, so embrace them.
Learn to love the unfortunate haircut you got because of your limited vocabulary, and the odd group of people you end up hanging out with. Enjoy it, you’re abroad for a good time – not a long time.
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