Preparing for Your Study Abroad Departure and Arrival
There are many things to do to prepare for your study abroad experience. It can be stressful and cause
you anxiety. Looking back now, what would have helped prepare me most for this experience is
preparing for the initial stress of arriving. Just accept that there is going to be stress/anxiety when you
first get there. You are in a different country with a completely new culture. You go from seeing people you care about every day to not seeing them for several months. You might even be the only person
you know in this new country or you may only know a handful of people. That can be quite hard to deal with at first.
When I first got to my study abroad destination, which in my case was Madrid, I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life. My landlord was late in meeting me at my new apartment, my apartment
was a bit different than I was expecting, and I had gone without sleep for about 24 hours. It was scary to say the least. The no sleep part made everything else seem 10 times worse, obviously because no one
operates well on no sleep. Everything ended up being okay in the end though. It helps to know that
several people are in the same situation as you are, and tons have felt what you are feeling at that
moment.
Get to know your study abroad buddies from U of L in the first few weeks. They will be the closest thing you have to home while you are abroad. They will also give you some comfort because they are in the
same situation as you, scared and excited for this new experience. Also, go to any youth activities in
your country. You will meet a ton of people there and it will be very easy to make friends. In Madrid
there is this group called City Life Madrid, and they help new people/exchange students meet other
people in Madrid that are interested in similar things. City Life also puts on nightlife events that were
super fun. They had pub crawls every Saturday night and an event at a night club with free entry every
Monday. I met so any people at these events and it helped my transition to my new situation so much
easier.
Also, to help reduce your stress it is helpful to knock out all your predeparture requirements as soon as
you can. Get your visa early, because sometimes it takes awhile to process. You don’t want it to be the date for you to leave and still not have your passport and visa back yet. I would also book a roundtrip
plan ticket, so you won’t have to worry about booking your return flight when you are abroad. By doing this, you can spend up to half of what you would spend by buying the trips separate. I did this and
ended up saving about $1,000 on my travel cost. The big thing is to make small goals to get prepared for your experience and knock the easy ones out first. This will make the initial experience so much better.