Study Abroad: the long view
So many times each year, I get emails or Facebook messages from Village or Catalyst alumni who went on the program and can’t quite settle back into life in the states. Of course they love their lives here and have family, school, a job and friends who make their lives full. But the hold Europe took over them has held firm long after their return, so much so that they want to know when it will ease up a little. The longing to go back. And the almost aching feeling that the time in Europe was just yesterday and not…a long time ago.
The mixed news I deliver is that even decades after our programs, Europe and the missing of it goes on without relent. It is as though one lives forever in the echoes of that month away. Students who went on our program in 2002 when it was first begun? They write to report that they’ve taken their partners to show them around “their” city. And then gone back with their children, to start their family’s next generation early on travel and Europe.
What’s equally interesting in the emails and other notes I get from alumni is how much they take for granted how our programs helped them professionally in their lives. They get past that point very quickly, as this alumna of The Village 2004 wrote recently, saying that “I got my first job from Pontlevoy and I’ve mentioned it since then in every job interview I’ve ever had. But that’s not why my memories so constantly return to that time and place. I go back to there and then because it was over there that I first met myself, really. My adult self.”
Countless voices tell us the same thing, those of us who have taught on or administered our programs for many years. Whether it is a heartfelt letter about the value of memories and friendships forged abroad a decade or more ago or a career whose launch came directly from a European semester or summer, the stories of our alumni always whirl around a common set of truths: that there wasn’t an easy financial path to go abroad with us; that there were countless reasons to stay home and intern or do a summer job; that staying back on a home campus would have cost less; that parents or friends or maybe a girl or boyfriend said that the trip would be a mistake; that the sum total of the time and experience only grows in value over time.
Our hundreds of alumni all had one moment when they knew without question that they would do one of our programs no matter what it took for them to do it. If you join their ranks, the sequence is pretty simply this: Europe calls. You answer. You take a five weeks or a full semester away. And forever after, you’re always going to be partly there. Whenever you hear a British accent or maybe someone speaking French. Or smell perfectly fried fish and chips or see the quintessential croissant. Or if somebody cracks a window to let fresh air in and The Clash out. In one second you’re right there again.
