Coming Home

Costa Rica has forever changed me. I adore the simple life, with lots of family and fresh food straight from the farm-- sun-warmed tomatoes, soft avocados, juicy mangos, sweet bananas, and more. I love the secrets the forests hold, the curious motmots, peering at me from a tree above, the tiny frogs, blending in with the leaf litter, the glassywing butterflies silently fluttering through the understory. I'm enamored with the mountains, like a spine down the country, with oceans flanking either side. Pura vida is accurate, I would say.

Having spent my semester in another country, I feel that I can see much more, I am less ignorant. I understand people from different cultures and backgrounds, and as much as I can see that we're different, I can also tell that we're very much the same. I can gauge the impact of my actions and the ways of my home country on the small nation that economically relies on it. I have witnessed international relations and effects. Even though I was essentially a tourist in the town where I lived, I felt that I became part of the community, knowing the ins and outs of the streets, the best places to eat, and the locals on the sidewalk.

Globalization is a difficult term for me. It represents a homogenization of society- a loss of culture, everyone becoming a consumer of the same things, watching and doing the same things, etc. In this sense, a global education is a wonderful concept. It's a chance for someone to immerse him or herself into a completely new culture. It's an opportunity not only explore how life works within that new culture, but to learn more about oneself, and what he or she wants out of life, out of his or her experiences. For me, it further solidified my desires to travel, to understand every ecosystem, to live on a small farm, and to conduct ecological research.

I encourage everyone to study abroad, and I encourage colleges and universities to continue to establish opportunities for students to go out and experience somewhere new, to learn everything about a place and adore it all at once, to have adventures. I can't wait until my next adventure begins. Who knows what it will be- eating my way through Italy, swimming through Australia, snowshoeing through Iceland... who knows! As philosopher Augustine of Hippo once declared, "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page."