Staying Put

I am very comfortable with myself, thank you very much. I like to think I am confident with who and where I am. Do I regret not studying abroad? Me? Why would I ever regret something like that? You must have me confused with some other less confident person! Okay, fine; maybe just a little kind of sort of dreading the semester when most of my people depart, leaving me flannel clad, exactly where I have been for the last two years.

Perhaps dread is too strong a word. In truth, I have looked for reasons to regret sticking around and have come up with few. After all, we do spend two years or so trying to figure college out only to decide that it is time for a break. On a more personal level, I feel I have earned my position as a junior Feb. I made it through angsty freshman weekends and sophomore slumps to reach the good life. I’m nearly legal, I get to go skiing any time I like and do work I genuinely find fascinating. What’s not to like?

Now I enjoy my friends, my sense of home and setting down my roots, so studying abroad was never truly in the cards for me. What I find particularly troubling is not that I am missing out on some great experience, but that people leave for reasons not necessarily abroad but here in Middlebury. The narrative of fantastic new lands to explore rarely seems to match the reality. It seems to be far more common for Middkids to leave because they simply want out of Middlebury for some time and see going abroad as that escape. I understand that, but that exchange seems to carry consequences beyond changing your country of residence for a few months.

As the first wave of my fellow juniors return there is a common theme in their response to “how was your study abroad?” There’s usually a blank stare, maybe a few ums and ahs and then, “It was good. Really good.” When pressed for details they are noncommittal and vague and you quickly look for a way out of the conversation.

I exaggerate, but in these responses there is another untold story: loneliness, hardship and genuine difficulty, and not the kind that builds character. Studying abroad is not the luxurious, adventurous experience we want it to be. It certainly can be, if done for the right reasons. A passion for a certain region and the chance for academic progress at different institutions are fantastic reasons. Needing to get out of Middlebury or simply because it seems to be the thing to do tend towards these stories of melancholic loneliness in a foreign land.

I wonder if part of it is just the need to reset. You get to return and reinvent yourself, give people time to grow up or work on themselves. But why do we choose that way to do it? Why not simply travel? Take time and go places and see things you want to see. Experience regions and cultures without the looming academic rigor. Go and take the experience you truly want, not the one imagined by the grandeur of studying abroad. Are we really convinced after all that at an academic level these schools outdo Middlebury? A handful, sure, but all of them?

I do not mean to simply rant at our study abroad system. In truth I think it provides some incredible experiences for the right people. If students want to have terrific experiences abroad they need a better reason than wanting to leave Middlebury. And we can’t ignore the very real challenges that being in a foreign country presents.  This takes tenacious, outgoing people with global mindsets and usually quite a bit of optimism. I lack many of those things. So when asked whether or not I am study abroad I am comfortable with my response. For me, that experience of loneliness and melancholy seems to be more real than an incredible time abroad.

We have a terrific luxury in our ability to travel around the world and we would be misusing our time if we did not do it as often as we could. There is time for travel and experience beyond studying abroad though. For those of us considering it, I hope there is a sincere reflection on the motivation to study abroad so we can hopefully avoid summing up what should be terrific experiences with, “It was really good.”