Coming Home

Even though I still haven't come home from Costa Rica I can still talk about what my education experience was like overall. Studying abroad is truly a life-changer because no matter how you do it, you are going to be thrown into situations out of your comfort zone. At first, it can be kind of stressful and make you anxious or scared, but the feeling you get once you've successfully dealt with all these new situations is of complete satisfaction that you have successfully traveled to foreign country and not only furthered your education, but also improved upon skills such as inter-personal skills, problem solving, language learning, and world history. World history is a very important one for me because growing up in the United States can really disconnect you from the rest of the world. It is easy to forget how privileged we are here in the U.S. and the international role our country is playing in global affairs.  It is also easy to be deluded into thinking the U.S. should be a role model for other "developing countries". If anything, I've learned that the U.S. is not as great and "developed" as I used to think and the American people would benefit greatly if they took a leaf from their Central American neighbor's book. The hard thing is trying to shift lifestyle while living in the U.S. because you don't know how to. Traveling to anther country really helps one step back, and take a look in the mirror and reconsider how we live in the U.S. The nice thing is that when you travel to a foreign country you can get a glimpse of other social systems that you may or may not associate yourself with more.