Should I Stay or Should I Go?

As I prepare to embark on my study abroad experience in Spain, I feel a mix of both anticipation and nervousness. Writing this blog post, I am in the middle of packing for my trip and as I take the time to pause and check in I find myself wondering how I can best prepare myself for the upcoming five weeks abroad. When I first heard about this study abroad experience, I’ll admit that I was slightly hesitant to apply. I remember having a lot of thoughts along the lines of “Wow that sounds like a lot of fun but I’m not sure I’d be able to make it work.” Like many other students I’ve interacted with at UWT, I have responsibilities that make it difficult for me to drop everything and travel abroad for five weeks. However, whenever I would branch the topic out to my family or friends in order to seek their advice, they advised me to take the chance and apply for the program. In particular, my friend Sophie’s advice to consider who I hoped to be in 5 years. And whether or not I would regret not having taken the opportunity to study abroad. Her advice to consider the impact a study abroad experience would have on my future self is ultimately what pushed me to take the chance and apply for the program.

Another reason I was hesitant to apply to this particular study abroad program was the location of this program in relation to my cultural and ethnic identity. As my mom is from a country in Central America that has experienced first-hand the horrors of Spanish colonization, I had mixed feelings about visiting a country with such a brutal history. Even now, a few days before the start of my program, I feel nervous about interacting with people from a country that is so different from the one that my mother grew up in. Another huge difference between Spain and the rest of Latin America is the way that Spanish is spoken in Spain compared to the way it is spoken by majority of people living in Latin America. Although it is true that each Spanish-speaking country in Latin America is diverse in its use of the language, I would argue that the Spanish spoken in Spain is the most unique among all the other countries. Learning how to speak Spanish with such an easily identifiable accent makes me wonder whether it will be harder for me to communicate and relate to people from Latin America.

As I grapple with these issues and anticipate my time abroad, I am trying to remind myself that having these types of feelings is completely normal. Engaging in experiences that are outside of my comfort zone just gives me more opportunities to better understand who I am as a person. I hope that during my time abroad I am able to gain a more holistic understanding of Spain and the people who live there. Hopefully, I will return to UWT with a broader perspective of both my own identity as well as the rest of the world.