The agony and ecstasy of studying abroad

La Petite France, Strasbourg where I spent my year abroad // Photo by Sian Morris

It’s September 2017 and my parents and I are at the tail end of a 600mile road trip from our home in Bournemouth to my new halls of residence on the outskirts of Strasbourg, France. It was a very, very long drive, made longer by anxiety and excitement taking it in turns to flip my stomach. It was like my first day at university all over again, but this time I was in France and if everything went wrong the comforts of home were well beyond my reach.

By the time we arrived at Cité Universitaire de la Robertsau – my new accommodation – I had decided to act confident. 'Fake it till you make it' if you will. “I’ve got this. I can do this” I told myself over and over. I didn’t want Mum and Dad to cotton on to my nervousness and worry about leaving me there. This plan crumbled as soon as we explored the facilities. The place was stripped back to the barest basics; even the toilet seats and washbasins in the bathrooms were missing. The kitchen consisted of a sink, two hobs and a microwave with suspicious burn markings and exposed wiring inside, there wasn’t even an oven or cupboards. To be honest, I probably should have guessed something was up when I googled the name of the place and the first result to jump back at me was about a nightmare bed bug infestation.

After a few weeks – and buying my own kettle and microwave for my room – I settled into my new home and learned to live with its ‘quirks’. Outside my student block, Strasbourg was idyllic. I had a 30-minute commute to uni each morning past the boulangerie where I could grab breakfast. After class, I would meet my friends and either head to our favourite beer hall, Au Brasseur, and eat tarte flambée and drink beer until closing time, or I would stroll back through Parc de l’Orangerie and watch the flamingos and cigognes in their enclosures.

When I first started going to study abroad meetings at my home university, the students who had just come back raved madly about how amazing it was. Very rarely did they mention that it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. The self-growth I went to through during my time abroad was rapid and some days I really felt the growing pains. I felt homesick and I missed my family and my boyfriend back home. On one occasion I found myself getting quite worked up at the fact that French road signs “just looked completely wrong” (culture shock is a real thing). More often than I would care to admit, I was completely overwhelmed and hid in my tiny room feeling like I was letting the time of my life pass me by. But, other days that decision to act confident came back to me: “I’ve got this. I can do this.” I would tell myself. I got on trains and planes and Flix Buses and travelled around. I went to Lyon, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna and by the time I climbed back into the car for another 600-mile road trip back to Bournemouth the following May, I felt like a completely different person. I'd made it.

This article will be published in universiTEA in October 2020.