Dear January Jake,
You are about to embark on the most unique experience of your entire life, so the number one piece of advice that I can give is to take advantage and appreciate every single moment you can because soon enough it will be gone. The first week of this experience will be tough considering you have never been to Europe but give it time. A week to adjust is a completely normal thing that everyone goes through, and you need to take time and realize with a routine, things will slowly start to get more familiar. At the end of the first week, you will learn that planning trips by yourself is very stressful (and costly) but don’t worry because soon enough you will start to reap the rewards of your extensive planning and saving and it will be more worth it than you can even imagine. You will be placed into a program called CEA CAPA, and they will have many opportunities that you can participate in. Do as many of these as you can because they are a great way to get to know other kids within your program, and they are all in the same position as you are. Also, the CEA CAPA staff is super helpful, and they are all very good resources to have.
The entire study abroad opportunity will help you grow as a person significantly in ways you didn’t even know you could. It will teach you how to be more accountable, more aware of your surroundings, more receptive to other cultures and it will teach you how to live with a new group of people and even a roommate. You will end the experience feeling much more responsible and ready for the next stage of your life after school. The two most important things for you to know are to take in the experience and know that everything happens for a reason. There will be ups and downs to the experience, but that is how everything works in life, and that is okay. However, the one thing for sure is this experience won’t last forever so please make sure you take it all in and truly appreciate the opportunity you were given. In the first week you will be planning your crazy flight to Norway for spring break that has you spending the night in the Rome airport, and then what feels like the next day, you will be spending the night in the Rome airport. It truly flies by so appreciate all the travel you can do because you are so incredibly lucky.
There are a couple of things that may surprise you about this experience. The first big one is how little sports you will watch. You have always considered yourself a huge sports fan and thought nothing would turn you away, however in Italy, you will watch almost none, but it is okay because they will always be there when you get back and your time here is valuable. Another surprising thing is how different the rest of the world is from the United States. To be brutally honest, you have lived in a bubble your entire life and did not fully appreciate the world around you. You never really realized how different things operate in the rest of the world and you were expecting everything to be pretty similar to the states, but you could not be more wrong. Seeing all these other countries may shock you, however, it should help you appreciate the life you live back in the United States.
When you started this experience, you may have questioned why you did it, however by the end you will wonder why you were doubting yourself. This is a time like no other, so make sure you appreciate it and take it all in. Enjoy the time abroad because as I watch my time come to an end, I realize how much this time means to me. Also, one last thing, make sure you thank those who made this all possible because they deserve the world for helping you grow in ways you never planned to.
