Tell me you don’t want to stroll down the streets of
Paris, or that you’ve never thought about spending a year
among gondolas.
Flamboyant destinations such as China, India or Brazil must have
flitted through your mind, yet here you stand with the rest of us,
two feet stubbornly planted on terra firma in the City of
Angels.
I entered UCLA like many silly freshmen: sickeningly idealistic
and earnestly trying to decide between futures where I would either
find the cure for the common cold, resolve the Middle East crisis,
maybe discover planets we could colonize, or become president.
Among all this was the resolution to study abroad, the absolute
promise to myself with which I was going to follow through.
But like most students, as my eyes opened up to the requirements
of my major and minor, looming grad school applications and the
standardized test of my field, that promise began to look
weaker.
We have all heard so much about it, seen all the shiny brochures
at the Education Abroad Program office and held onto thoughts of
visiting that random city.
Human beings are the ultimate explorers ““ we come from
navigating the globe, from a giant leap for mankind and from the
depths of the Amazon.
So why is it that most students never end up in Budapest or
Frankfurt?
Speaking to several Bruins, it is apparent that we have taken
our gazes off the horizon and set them on classes, majors and
prospective careers.
Michelle Peng, a second-year biology student, is in the middle
of deciding whether to study abroad.
“A lot of the classes they offer don’t fulfill my
requirements. (Studying abroad) could make me fall behind,”
she said.
Tony Hu, another second-year biology student agreed, “It
is much more complicated for a South Campus major to study
abroad.”
He explained the competitive pre-med road. “You always
have to stay ahead of the curves because you’re competing
with your classmates to get into medical school.”
Transfer students also feel the pressure. “We don’t
have enough time,” was the flat response of transfer student
Carol Hunsperger, a fourth-year anthropology student.
Another transfer student, Tiffany Rodriguez, a third-year
psychology student explained, “If I could, I would, but I put
interning before studying abroad. I only have one summer at UCLA,
and I think interning will get my foot in the door more than
studying abroad.”
Many of us are on that typical path to becoming doctors, lawyers
and scientists, but what happens when we are completely inside and
the door closes behind us?
Even for those more adventurous among us, etching the way to
Broadway or swimming through the limbo that is
“undeclared,” it can get complicated.
When I think ahead a decade or so, the future consists of some
sort of career-and-family combo. The last thing I want to do is
look up one day from paying bills and mortgages to realize that I
didn’t fully experience life.
This is it ““ right now ““ this is our youth.
We are living out the small portion of human life that has
shaped so many verses, so much art and so much controversy.
I realize that ambition and practicality are a big part of
growing up and play a major role in our decisions here.
Hu admitted, “In another life I would be a writer. I am
pre-med because I really want to succeed and also because of family
pressure. Writing (as a career) doesn’t have any guarantees,
so I guess I’ll subdue my artistic side.”
Before slipping into a too-jaded state of mind about the lack of
joie de vivre on campus, consider the case of one.
Richard Hart is a fourth-year transfer astrophysics student with
plans to go to graduate school. Yet he studied abroad in Salamanca,
Spain for three months.
“I had the time of my life,” he said, sitting up
enthusiastically when asked abut his experience.
“The city had a better nightlife than any place I’ve
seen,” he said. “And because it was Europe and I wanted
to see everything I could, I traveled to a new place every weekend.
Travel is the greatest thing you can do.”
Coming from the depths of South Campus, the classes Hart took
didn’t coincide with his field and were mostly general
education courses.
“There is really no excuse,” he said. “You can
make the time now, not once your life starts. You can always put
off a quarter, but you can’t put off a career.”
I have lived in three countries so far, and honestly, there is
nothing like strange food, odd sanitation systems and
unintelligible road signs to heighten the very sense of being
alive.
So, right before establishing peace in the Middle East and just
after writing that thesis on the common cold, let’s up and go
to Roma.
For directions to the Education Abroad Program office,
e-mail Joshi at rjoshi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments
to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.