Studying abroad had been something that I felt I was sure of in the midst of all the uncertainties of college. Despite my certainty and excitement towards studying abroad, I came in with no expectations toward my year in Glasgow. I think a large part of it had to do with studying abroad being contingent on many factors that I did not want to build my hopes up in fear that Scotland wouldn’t work out. It took my mind a long time to register that I really was on the other side of the Atlantic and in Europe.
It’s difficult to summarize the way studying abroad has been life-changing. There were many challenges that came with studying abroad; some were expected, like learning to be independent and experiencing loneliness, while others were unexpected and I feel I would have never experienced them outside the context of studying abroad for a year. At the end of my first semester, new people moved into my flat after many of my international flatmates left when their semester abroad came to a close. It was unsettling being in the same exact same space but seeing it inhabited by an entire new group of people who didn’t know the history and the exchanges that took place there. It was challenging having that knowledge that others didn’t and trodding what felt like a different timeline from everyone else. Sometimes I felt that way towards home too, but these were all challenges that I needed to grow into the person I’m supposed to be.
It was also strange establishing certain relationships with the knowledge that my time in Scotland was temporary. Sometimes it felt like Glasgow was a space without constraints or consequences because California was my “real life” and Scotland was not. That, of course, was not true but I feel lucky to have been able to experience something that felt that vast and limitless. I feel lucky for all the times that I felt vulnerable and lost too, and for all the people that have guided me and allowed me to experience human compassion during those times: the uber driver that said to call him if I needed help because he knows what it feels like to start over somewhere new, the old man in France that communicated to my friend and I using Google Translate and later walked us to the station, and the Filipino man who I bonded with because we were both immigrants. I feel a shift in my perspective in the things I had considered important and I feel grounded knowing how much the world and the future were ours to make. I had always thought that studying abroad would be “life-changing” in an intense, but ambiguous way but what it had really done was given me clarity that I couldn’t have achieved staying in my hometown. I think the only thing I wonder about is how much greater I would have changed had I chosen a destination whose culture was not Western, but I think I still have a lifetime to explore that aspect of the world.
Scotland is a place I will always look back on it as the place that took care of me when I was 21. I’ll miss my life in Glasgow and I’ll miss the Maryhill community that I got to know through volunteering at my thrift store. I’ll miss the routines, the friends that I made, the quick train ride to Edinburgh, and even (to an extent) the unpredictable weather. Closing this chapter abroad, I return to California feeling more inspired and hopeful, for all the possibilities that exist in this world, for all the people in the world who share common struggles, and for all the experiences that have yet to be had.
Thank you again to the donors who have made this experience possible for me.