Going Abroad: A Life-Changing Adventure

While college can certainly be an adventure in itself, getting the most out of this time in your life might involve leaving Lubbock. Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom, Texas Tech University students have the chance to visit Tech’s biannual Study Abroad Fair and learn all about the program’s different opportunities and destinations.

Tech has programs in countries all over the world, but one of most popular study abroad programs is at the TTU Center in Seville, Spain, where students can spend a semester studying the Spanish language and culture first hand.

Bird’s-eye view of Seville, Spain. Photo by Tori Young.

“I’ve never traveled overseas before in my entire life,” said Tori Young, who just spent her first week at the Center in Sevilla, “so when I heard about the study abroad opportunity, I was immediately interested.”

The junior advertising major from The Woodlands, Texas, said she was craving a new experience that would get her out of her comfort zone, and she chose the program in Spain to fulfill her foreign language credits.

“We’ve only been here a week, but I have already fallen in love with the whole experience,” Young said via email. “It was definitely an adjustment at first, and I am still getting used to certain things, but I know it will be an incredible memory for the rest of my life.”

Young said getting used to a new culture and living with a host family who does not speak English have been the hard to adjust to but that will not put a damper on her experience.

“So far it has been so much fun! I cannot stress that enough,” she said. “Cultural differences aside, I can tell this will be such an incredible semester.”

Group of Tech students currently abroad in Spain. Photo by Tori Young.

Young said she is most excited to be able to travel around and outside of Spain this semester, with trips to Rome, Amsterdam and Paris topping her list.

Hailey Bishop, junior public relations major from Liberty Hill, Texas, said she got to visit nine different countries while studying in Spain during the last spring semester. Just a couple of her excursions included skydiving in the Swiss Alps and a trip to Morocco, where she rode a camel and explored the marketplaces.

Bishop said the professors at the TTU Center in Seville were easy to work with and would help make time for both classes and traveling, and she especially enjoyed the Tech community on campus.

“Something cool about Spain, in specific, is that you go with people who are from Texas Tech, and your professors are from Texas Tech,” Bishop said, “and they really want to help you and make you feel comfortable, so it was almost too easy.”

Bishop and friends during a weekend trip to Morocco. Photo by Hailey Bishop.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea – language isn’t the only subject to study abroad, and Spain is far from the only place to go. Among other programs, individual colleges have all kinds of opportunities to go abroad and many are made just for certain majors.

Shannon Tumy, an elementary education major, spent two weeks this summer in Santiago, Dominican Republic, studying children’s literature and student teaching, and she said her favorite part was being able to implement her studies in English as a second language at the school there.

Tumy with a group of her students in Santiago, Dominican Republic. Photo by Shannon Tumy.

“This is for the College of Education, and it was teaching, so going abroad was great,” the senior from Spring, Texas, said, “but going abroad for something that was really involved with my major really helped and made me feel more at ease about being out of the country.”

Associate professor in the journalism and electronic media department, Robert Peaslee, Ph.D., did his dissertation on film tourism in New Zealand. This summer he got to take a group of 20 students to the country to study film and adventure tourism, the country’s film industry and national culture, and photography.

“There’s just something so meaningful about providing students with an opportunity to experience something life changing,” Peaslee said. “The course material really comes to life in these environments, and traveling provides countless opportunities for students to have their boundaries pushed in a variety of ways. It’s fun to see that.”

Peaslee said he thinks studying abroad is one of the most life-changing things anyone can do.

“Whether it’s this program or another one somewhere else, studying abroad is transformative,” Peaslee said. “You will come back with a new appreciation for the place you visit, the culture you experience, the people you meet, and your own place in the world.”