Study abroad, you’ll never regret it

By: Lucas R. Watson, Layout Editor

You’ll never regret it.’ I heard that exact phrase numerous times before I left to study abroad in London a year ago. It’s a common phrase people say when they talk to those who are planning on studying abroad.

Back in 2023, I had chosen to study abroad. I asked for some information, attended a few sessions and gathered the information I needed to figure out how many credits I needed to graduate and what requirements I still had to fulfill. It was a matter of compiling the information, and truth be told, the process was easy – paperwork here and there, meetings as well and talking to advisors. Then, it was figuring out where I wanted to go. There were a ton of places to choose from – Queensland, Antwerp, Florence, Madrid, Galway, Glasgow, Lille, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, Berlin, Barcelona and London to name just a few – but London stuck out to me. I had been there for a week or two a couple of years back and I found a program I had wanted to do. I was able to cover some requirements for two majors and make great use of it for my academic career and even accelerate it a bit, managing to move my expected graduation date to this December. When you study abroad, however, you’re typically not confined to one major, or one set of courses; you can take a pile of different courses depending on where you are. In my experience, I chose courses about law, politics and even international relations with intersecting aspects of all sorts in each course.

Academics are very important and cannot be stressed enough when studying abroad, but I would consider the experience equally important. When studying abroad, you have the chance to completely immerse yourself in a culture that is unfamiliar to your own for three to four months, learning how people truly live and work in a world 3,000 miles away from home and away from everything you’ve known.

The people you’ll meet can be transformative in ways I cannot begin to describe – people from different backgrounds, people going through what you’re going through as well. I had roomed in London with someone from Pennsylvania, so there was some common ground. You’ll find your people, and you’ll make friends with people whose perspectives on the world differ so greatly from your own. 

For me, studying abroad was a transformative experience like no other. It has changed my life in so, so many ways. Firstly, there were a lot of introspective experiences. I did a lot of solo travel and eventually lived completely alone. Solo travel can be an incredibly rewarding thing – while there is the urge to want to share it with someone else, experiencing it for just yourself and learning about your own physical and mental limitations while traveling can create a ton of growth. I had learned so much by traveling across England largely by myself that I couldn’t trade that experience for anything else. I learned who I was and what I could do, and who I can be for the future. It was an incredible experience and allowed for so much introspection.

Studying abroad will open doors. It will change your life. You’ll learn about other pathways through life, new goals that you want to achieve and you’ll find yourself wondering – wondering what could happen if you took this certain pathway. I found myself doing that quite a lot. I fell in love with England; for me, it just fits. I have an interest in maritime law and being able to interact with people involved in that field. Being able to visit the International Maritime Organization solidified my interest in the field. Interacting with the general public and seeing the best and worst of a given area gives you perspective, and truth be told, this perspective led me to love England. It’s a place that I feel is best for me. I say that it will change your life, as based on my experience a year ago, I ended up applying to law schools in England, and I do plan to attend law school there. By now, I’ve received offers from a couple of renowned schools with offerings in the field I cherish so greatly. All of this, all of this may happen to you as well.

But regardless of what happens, studying abroad is something that I can firmly recommend to anyone and everyone who is able to do so. If you even have a fleeting interest in going abroad for a semester, take advantage of that interest and take advantage of the opportunity. I did, and now, having done so, I can confidently say to anyone who might want to go:

You’ll never regret it.

Westminster Bridge over the Thames looking south via Lucas Watson