Why You Should Study Abroad (From Someone Who Did and Still Won't Shut Up About It)
TLDR: There's a meme that says espresso martinis are just Red Bull vodkas that studied abroad and won't stop bringing it up. I’ve never had a Red Bull vodka, but I have been talking about my semester in Cambridge since I was 19 and I do love espresso martinis, so…
I spent a semester in Cambridge, England on a shoestring budget and it changed everything about how I see the world. I came back a different person. I think everyone should have the chance to do what I did, and I think most people don't realize it's actually within reach.
My Pitch
I made a slide deck to convince my family to let me go. I didn't know I was a marketer yet (I was an international business major at the time). I covered the cost breakdown, the academic program, and the once-in-a-lifetime nature of it. I was nervous, but confident I was making the right choice and wanted others to see it as an obvious one. I wanted it badly enough to build a case.
My family said yes. I got on a plane.
It was the right call.
What Living There Actually Looked Like
I had £10 a day for food. That sounds impossible until you learn the rhythms of a place. The Co-op became my grocery store. A Wetherspoons meal deal and a sneaky cider became a perfectly acceptable Tuesday.
I cycled everywhere. I walked everywhere. I learned that a city reveals itself differently on foot than it does from a tour bus or a cab. Cambridge is a city you have to move through slowly to actually see.
I did an unplanned day trip to London with my roommate. We just went. That's the kind of thing that happens when you're living somewhere instead of visiting it.
That's the distinction that matters. I wasn't a tourist. I had a routine. I had a budget. I had places I went and things I did and a version of a life that was mine, even temporarily.
What Changed
I came back different in ways I'm still processing. Something shifted in me over there, in how I see the world and the people in it and the assumptions I'd grown up with. Immersing yourself in a completely different place has a way of quietly dismantling things you didn't even know you believed. I came back with more questions and fewer certainties, and I think that's a good thing.
I also came back depressed.
That part nobody warns you about. You've had a taste of something bigger, a life that felt expansive and full of possibility, and then you're back in your regular life and everything feels small by comparison. The post-study-abroad depression is real and it makes complete sense and I wish someone had told me to expect it.
The Second Attempt
About a year after I got home, I tried to go back. I transferred to a different school located in Cambridge. I had a flat picked out and everything.
Then I had a seizure. Unexplained, out of nowhere. And suddenly moving to another country alone didn't feel practical or safe, so I didn't go.
I think about that a lot.
What I'd Tell My 19-Year-Old Self
Go.
Don't worry about the money if at all possible, and if you have to go into debt to make it happen, seriously consider it (you’re already going into debt for school). This is one of the few things worth going into debt for.
And if you can take a gap year instead of or in addition to studying abroad, do it. I didn't, and I think about what that might have looked like. There's something about having unstructured time in the world before adulthood locks in that I think I would have benefited from.
Don't stay cooped up in your room. Get out. Be around people. Try to make friends. Go to pubs. Embrace the Sunday roast. Say yes to the unplanned day trip. During my semester I traveled around England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I used Cambridge as a home base and got out as much as I could.
And when the program ended, I didn't go home. I kept going. Two weeks backpacking through the Netherlands, France, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Germany. A Eurail pass, hostels, whatever was cheapest. It was chaotic and exhausting and one of the best things I've ever done.
Make a place for yourself there, even if it's temporary, even if it's just for a semester. And then when it ends, keep going if you can.
You will come home changed. That's the point.
What I'd Tell Parents
If your kid has the opportunity to study abroad and the barrier is money, help them find a way. Look at program costs carefully because they vary enormously. Some programs are cheaper than a semester at a US school when you factor in room and board. Some have scholarship options that go unclaimed every year because students don't apply.
Your kid will come back with a perspective on the world that you cannot give them any other way. Not with a vacation, not with a gap year at home, not with anything else. There is something specific that happens when a young person has to figure out how to live in a place that isn't theirs. It builds something.
Help them get there if you can.
The Slide Deck Was Worth It
I didn't know when I made that pitch deck that I'd spend my career building campaigns and making cases for things I believed in. I didn't know that the skill I was using to convince my family to let me go would be the same skill I'd use professionally.
But I knew I wanted to go badly enough to make an argument for it.
That feeling was right.
Trust it.
Katie Frank is a B2B SaaS growth marketer based in Birmingham, AL. She writes about marketing and travel at katiefrankmarketing.com
