Studying Abroad is Starting to Become Real

I’ve talked before about how I am going to be studying abroad in Canada during the 2017/18 academic year, but it now feels like it is starting to become real.

Honestly, there’s still part of me that thinks it’s like a year off until I go. It’s all just come around so quickly from the first meetings with my uni’s Study Abroad office when they were explain how the process of applying and being allocated a place works. But I now have my plane ticket to fly out and I will be going out there in under two months. I am honestly really not that nervous all things considered.

It’s the little things that are making me feel the most nervous. Actually nervous is probably not the right word so much as I am finding certain things weird. Things like getting used to having an academic email address which ends in .ca instead of .co.uk seem really strange to me right now. In terms of cultural adjustment I suspect that when I am out there it’s going to be those little things that get to me more often than the big things do.

In some ways I am sort of seeing this as being similar to going off to university for the first time. I will be living in a new city, I will back in university accommodation and I will be learning in a new place. First year taught me a lot about independent living. Second year taught me a lot about having the self-confidence to do what I want to. I can be a very self-reliant individual which is something I have developed over the course of my first two years at university. I feel like in many ways what I have already experienced has helped to prepare me for going out to live and study in another country on another continent.

I have been told a lot that I need to embrace every opportunity whilst I am out there. To be honest this does sound a bit cliché but it is something that I intend to do. Studying abroad is an amazing opportunity and I know that I am incredibly lucky to have this opportunity so I am going to make the most of it. At the end of the day I will probably never have another opportunity like this so it’s definitely something that I am going to embrace.

I will keep updating this blog as I get closer and closer to going out. I am also going to record what I get up to once I’m in Canada because it is an amazing opportunity. I have been told by my friends and family that they want to keep reading about how it goes on here.