Prior to studying abroad, I had never been out of the country before, nor did I even own a passport. It is fair to say that this was the most adventurous event to ever occur in my life. Even after submitting all of the paperwork and purchasing my ticket, it still did not feel real to me. It did not set in that I was really doing this until I touched down in London on September 12th. The flight was 8 hours which is also the longest flight that I had been on up until that point as well, but it went very smoothly. I went with my best friend so that also made the journey a little easier. Once we arrived in London and met up with our program coordinator is when reality struck- all of a sudden, I was 5,000 miles away from home.
The university system in London is definitely much different than in the states. I would not say that it was harder, but it was definitely more distinctive. The professors there taught in a manner that was more like we were their peers rather than their students- which was something that I really enjoyed. My favorite part of studying abroad was definitely the traveling that I was able to do while overseas. The flights from London to other countries in Europe were so much cheaper than flights in the United states are so me and my friend took full advantage of that. For example, our flight from London to Athens was only 39 pounds which is roughly 48 U.S. dollars. We traveled to Milan, Rome, Budapest, Barcelona, Athens, Paris, and Amsterdam. Out of all of these, Spain was my favorite because of the great weather and the fact that my grandfather is from Spain, so it was amazing to be able to connect with the culture. Amsterdam was also a top destination for me and was somewhere that I would legitimately consider moving to at some point in my life. It definitely made the most sense for us to stay in London for the majority of the time since they speak English and have great shopping- which is something that me and my friend both enjoy, but traveling to see other cultures that we had never encountered was a monumental experience for sure.
I believe that studying abroad taught me how to be more independent and how to interact with people from different walks of life. I definitely learned a lot from the classes that I was taking, but I believe that the biggest takeaways came from the day to day interactions that I had with the people that I came into contact with. When talking to family members and my other friends at UTC, I have advocated heavily for studying abroad since it was such a great experience for me. If anyone has the chance to participate in the study abroad program, I advise them to take that opportunity because it will be noting short of life changing.
Rian Blackman (BS Management) spent Fall 2022 studying abroad in London, England through KEI. Rian had the following to say about studying abroad, “I am not the same person that I was before studying abroad. It is hard to describe the feeling in words completely, but I just know that I feel more confident, independent, and complete after this experience.”
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