Today marks the first year anniversary of my coming back to the Philippines after spending 5 months in San Francisco as an exchange student, and while I’ve (mostly) come to grips with the realization that I won’t be coming back, at least for a few more years, to the Bay Area, I still have moments when I wish I would just wake up and find myself in my cramped dorm room again, with my roommate splayed across her bed and with the sun peeking at me through the cheap blinds that are messily placed by the window.
I miss being an exchange student.
And equally as true, I miss San Francisco.
And because it’s 2 in the morning and I can’t sleep yet on account of the fact that I’m doing nothing but looking at photos of SF, I’ve compiled a list (perhaps the word “list” is too general a term) of why people should always take the opportunity to study abroad, if just for a semester. This will perhaps seem a bit too nostalgic, but it’s never a bad thing to reminisce — especially when you’re reminiscing what is easily the best consecutive 5 months of your student life.
Go abroad to study because you can.
College is the time to explore new things, meet new people, and make mistakes; and no matter how unbelievably cliche that sounds, it’s true. At least for me. Prior to college, going outside of my comfort zone was not exactly the most thrilling of ideas. I mean, true, I had friends from a variety of nations, and truer still, I didn’t mind travelling alone, but being thrown in a place completely foreign, even if everyone spoke the same language (which, I admit, was both advantageous and disadvantageous on my part), was so alien an idea I didn’t want to believe I can do it.
And, like everything else, I realized that I could only after I’ve managed my way through it.
Go study abroad because you can. With that I mean you’re physically able, and — judging by the fact alone that you’re in that academic stage of your life — you’re mentally apt. Go because it’s the time of your life where you can actually start proving to yourself (and your parents) that you were brought up well; that you’re aware about the world, that you can be trusted, and that you realize that all of life cannot be learned inside the classroom — for while textbooks can teach you a lot, experiences can teach you much, much more. Discussing issues with someone from a completely different culture and with completely different beliefs, learning who to ask directions for and how, and even encountering people with preconceived notions about you just because you belong to a particular race — all these are things you would never know if you believe that the classroom is all you need to learn.
Go study abroad because it will change you.
There’s only so much you can learn if you stand on the precipice of one building, and even if you memorize the details that sprawl around you, you will only realize just how much you did not know if you stand on another building’s rooftop, or if you’re seated on a plane.
Go study abroad because it will make you understand that you’re never truly smart until you learn empathy, patience, and the ability to strike up conversations with strangers. You’re never truly brave until you get lost in the middle of nowhere at dusk, and have to ask around for directions, only realizing that there’s no one in sight.
Go study abroad because there’s nothing like making your dent in a place far away from home. And this involves more than simply living there — this means falling in love: with the people, with a certain someone, with the way the wind blows, with the absurdity of being thrown into an altogether different culture, with yourself, and with the idea of home. Go far away because everything’s much more convenient from where you are right now, and because to truly understand the world, sometimes you’d have to learn it through unconvenient means. Like situating yourself in a place where the things you believe in are questioned and where the things you put faith into are thought of as queer.
Because at one point in your life, you thought other opinions were odd, too.
Go study abroad because the world has endless lessons to teach you and a hundred other ways to show you how. Go because it teaches you resilience, patience, and the ability to find home not in familiar faces or comfy duvets, but in people you would – prior to going – not have thought you’d be friends with.
Go because there’s a certain thrill in not being able to sleep at 4 in the morning, but realizing that when you go online, you’d have friends from abroad to talk to, rant at, or be silent with.
Go.
Just go.
Because looking back, you’ll realize that studying abroad may just have been the best decision you have made in your college life.
I would know.
After all, it was mine.
(Joy’s note, I’m sorry for the photos. I was in my Gradient and Light Leaks phase in 2013. I’m a work in progress.)
Of perpetual finds 
I will forever be envious of you for getting to be an exchange student. 😦