Living abroad for the semester has allowed me to learn an immense amount and grow both personally and academically. I have been given the opportunity to experience and be immersed in new and different cultures. It is with this that I have developed more hard and soft skills, from all of the new experiences I have gained. Communication and teamwork are two skills I have developed more and more over the course of the semester. This is largely accredited to how many courses require group projects. Every single one of my classes has required multiple group projects throughout the semester, allowing me to collaborate and develop my soft skills alongside people from all across the world. I have learned so much about different education systems and their cultures across the world. On every project I have worked on, I have learned something new about how projects are done at other universities and the differences in how topics are approached. 

In addition to growing in an academic environment, I have been able to gain so much more perspective on the world from the people I have met from all different places and parts of the world. I have met people from many different countries including nearly every country in Europe. It has been amazing to learn about different traditions, norms and lifestyles from places in the world I have only ever dreamed of visiting. Fortunately, I have been lucky to travel to some new places including Poland, Hungary, Czecch Republic, The Netherlands, Slovakia and Austria. In every single one of these places I was able to experience and become immersed in new cultures, giving me a new perspective on how people live so differently, and what one considers to be a norm, could be completely foreign somewhere else. Anything from common courtesy to street culture varies drastically between countries and largely between different parts of the same country. I have traveled all over Austria, and everywhere I have gone has had a certain part of their culture reflective of the area itself. My favorite being Hallstatt, one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the privilege of visiting. It is a small town with only 700 residents and it lies right on a lake. The town itself looks as if it was the set of a movie. The most beautiful houses and shops and views I have ever seen. I am so beyond grateful for all of the places I have been able to visit, and the things I have been able to see and do.