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Anxieties,
excitement in leaving to study abroad
Jeanette
Prather
During
my freshman year, what began as a routine
general education course at Cal State Long
Beach quickly transformed into the first
step of a long journey to an exotic land.
Studying abroad had always held my attention,
but not until taking my first French language
course in college did I really consider
tackling this feat.
Students build a bond with other students
planning to study overseas, feeding energy
and excitement off one another for the semester
or year ahead. Some people speak the native
language of their destination country and
some have never set foot on the soil in
their destination country. I fit in with
the second group.
It is not that I have never been to France;
it is that I have never even been to Europe.
You can imagine my exhilaration upon receiving
my acceptance letter. Mixed feelings of
anxiousness, nervousness, elation and euphoria
have bubbled within me ever since, especially
when reminded that I will not just be staying
in Aix-en-Provence, France for one semester,
but one year.
So what kind of flaming hoops did I have
to jump through in order to get this once-in-a-life-time
opportunity? A lot.
To begin the excruciating application process,
I first paid a visit to the Study Abroad
office in Brotman Hall. There are very helpful
people in there who encourage students to
study overseas, so the more information
that can be sucked from them, the better.
They provided me with a large booklet about
my desired country and requested it back
in that office within the week (but under
normal circumstances a month or so, depending
on when the application packet was received
by the student, would suffice).
I was fortunate and completed my application
within the week, but having changed my mind
about where I wanted to study, that was
all the time I was allotted. And man was
it tough.
The packet contains the application, an
essay form, a request for all college transcripts
and two professor recommendation sheets.
Do not wait until the last minute to get
these forms completed or adrenaline will
sweep over you in the shape of panic and
stress will kick in as well as having to
deal with the unhappy faces of the people
in the Study Abroad office.
So the application is in and now is the
time to exhale, sit back and relax while
the days slowly creep by until the acceptance
or rejection letter arrives in the mail.
To my surprise, more people were denied
this privilege than I had expected. There
were 62 students who went through the interview
and 54 of those students actually made it,
according to the Study Abroad office.
In the study abroad waiting room a person
will discover all sorts of interesting things
about themselves they would not have learned
under other circumstances. You begin to
predict the departure, the tears and the
airplane ride; what music you will listen
to and if you can manage to sleep anytime
during the 12-hour flight.
Familiar songs and colors change meaning
now as everything in your perception has
an expiration date. The beauty in everything
begins to shine because your subconscious
realizes that it will not be in your presence
for much longer. Important situations and
dramatic scenarios start to fade away and
small things that seemed crucial yesterday
are merely a mirage today. You begin to
develop the mindset of “it doesn’t
matter anymore because I’m going to
begin a new life in a foreign country.”
Good thing I got accepted. Now it is just
a matter of making the little time left
in Long Beach count as much as the expectation
of this wonderful and exotic new territory
does in my mind. Between the workshops and
dinners created to help unite the CSULB
students who are studying abroad next semester
or year, reality takes hold and brings me
back down to earth, at least for a little
while.
Jeanette Prather is a third year print
journalism student at CSULB and the city
editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
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