Why Didn’t Study Abroad Fix My Identity Crisis?

Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

With the advent of the roaring 2020s and the rising popularity of study abroad programs around the world, many young people have an easier path to Hemingway style self-exile from their monotonous surroundings, sans the need for a world war.

In true aspiring artist/writer/alcoholic fashion, I have gone to and returned from Europe twice now for extended periods of time as well as voyaged on plenty of smaller stints, hoping to grow as a person “by leaving my comfort zone.” The reality is that both personal growth and Europe are a hell of a lot uglier than I anticipated, and that coming-of-age is ultimately not a one-stop journey, nor is it an easy one. It takes a lot of connecting flights on cheap airlines as well as painfully long layovers to reach a solid sense of self. And sometimes you leave your passport at the airport wine bar.

Nothing dampens a drunken romanticist evening in Rome like becoming the victim of a mugging and crying your way back to safety (shoutout to the kind Italian café owner who called me a taxi home). Despite the drawbacks, study abroad stands as one of the best decisions I have ever made. I think of that evening in Rome as a metaphor for my mental and emotional awakening. Surviving into the next day, I felt hardened by the experience and instead of cutting that trip short, I decided to press on.

The rewards were glorious. Think, somehow wondering into a Gatsby-Esque party thrown by the most elite members of Roman society glorious.

More importantly, however, it was leaving my home that forced me to confront the mentalities that prevented me from becoming happier and more productive not only as a writer but as a person.

At the end of my second rodeo, I realized that study abroad was something far more internal.

So if you are a student and are thinking about answering the call of faraway lands, whether to flâneur as the next Hemingway in Parisian cafés or simply cast off the burdens of Western society in South East Asia for the purposes of your own personal Eat Pray Love, here is how to both refine your escapism and actually transform abroad by avoiding the pitfalls that I have generously already experienced for you.

I went abroad with the wrong intentions.