As this is published, I will have completed eleven months abroad: June and July in Rabat; September, October, November, and December in Nantes; and January, February, March, April, and May in Paris.
Anyone who spoke to me at all last fall will probably recall that I was obsessed with study abroad, and to some degree, I still am. But around October, I was planning for another summer program. I dreamed of another two months abroad--Berlin, Rome, Barcelona, St. Petersburg! I wanted to go to all of them and the hardest decision was choosing a destination. As my amazing program in Nantes continued and I accepted my offer of admission to Sciences Po, I started thinking about Fall 2015 programs. Where could I go? Italy? Maybe Morocco again? A whole semester in Russia!
I never wanted to go home.
Nantes was unique in that it was the very first program that I've ever participated in that I did not complain about. This is not to say that these programs were terrible, because I've also been lucky to never have been in an absolute hell-hole of a program.
But I have done my fair share of complaining and then some.
I moaned about assignments and teachers and late drama nights at Forest Ridge. I cried during my first time in Nantes because I was cold and I wanted my mom. I complained about Stanford and its dining hall hours and disruptive RAs. I did nothing but bitch during my first year at George Washington--both econ 101 and my roommates got equal treatment in emails home. I complained about the heat and the chaos of Rabat.
Nantes Fall 2014 was so different. I was fortunate to have the loveliest host mother, the friendliest center staff, the best classes, the most understanding professors, the most invigorating ballet class, and the nicest and smartest friends who wanted nothing more than to speak French and go to brunch and discuss novels and classes and museums. I was in a beautiful, bustling city. It was small enough to easily navigate with a single monthly paper pass but big enough to give me new things to do every weekend. I learned how to bake and how to take a train by myself and how to speak French so well that I fooled governmental survey-takers. I wrote a novel. I received a 3.88 GPA.
I understand now that Nantes will always be there for me--I've returned there four separate times in my life and I've never arrived to see it disappointingly different. In fact, the construction is basically completed, so it looks much fresher than it did in Spring 2011.
Paris was not Nantes.
It also wasn't Rabat and it wasn't Stanford and it wasn't George Washington and it wasn't Forest Ridge. In fact, I'm going to say that it was my least favorite academic program that I've ever experienced, including George Washington online classes and that weird mail correspondence course in calculus I took senior year of high school.
This is exemplified by the fact that after going to every single lecture and discussion and reading all of the readings, the only fact I have retained from the entire semester is that Vladimir Putin has an honorary doctorate in judo.
It's no one's fault. It's not my fault nor is it the fault of my professors or TAs. Sciences Po Paris just wasn't a good fit for me, although I can't pinpoint exactly why. It might be the odd line that I've been straddling the entire semester between speaking French and being Parisian and speaking English and being American. It might be the impersonal nature of the university coupled with the lack of central student area mixed with the (quite frankly) irrationally strict format of essay writing. I'm sure there are a billion other factors that caused Sciences Po and me to never click.
This is where Paris has taught me a lesson. Paris gave me the opportunity to continue my study abroad experience to the point of over-saturation. I am not in D.C. right now speculating about what another adventure abroad could have been like. Instead, I am in Paris, reflecting on how being abroad is after you come down from the euphoria.
Paris was not a bust. I cannot say that. Paris taught me how to live in a big city. I learned how to cook, how to navigate a city's transportation, how to take care of myself without a host family or a program center easily accessible. I also took a lot of ballet classes.
I spoke to my mother in late March, regarding my application for a summer in Berlin. I was very enthusiastic because I had been planning it for several months, but after another week, I called her.
"I'm just not feeling enthusiastic about Berlin. Can I cancel the application? Is that okay?"
"That's fine," she replied. "I sent you an email about an internship in D.C. Did you take a look at that?"
"I did, and I'm working on the letter of interest now."
I have a feeling that she'd been waiting for me to say something along those lines, something like I'm done abroad and I want to come home. I think she was just waiting for me to be the one to decide.
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