If I'd never left, I'd never have known

I am a girl geographically coming from  the Balkan Peninsula, yet there is much more to every person than where they come from. So I would tell you about one of my teen dreams, which become true in my twenties. 

Two years ago I was a very fortunate person for spending a whole year as an exchange student at University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Going there was a long way for me, yet it was worth all the efforts I put in it, even though it didn`t feel like that all the time. 

Everything started in high-school, when I found out about the Erasmus student-exchange programme and ever since then I had wanted to become part of it. The idea of spending up to a year studying abroad fascinated me. While I was waiting to become an university student myself and being given the opportunity to apply for Erasmus, I was collecting impressions, opinions and experiences of other people who had been international students themselves. Every story inspired me more and more to strive for my goal. I though they prepared me for what was coming, but theoretically knowing something, doesn`t  usually prevent you from avoiding experiencing it…
I won`t tell you leaving abroad is easy, because it`s not! Strangely enough I also remember vividly the hard moments, those that I actually learnt more from! The hardest confrontation was the one with experiencing myself outside of my comfort zone on so many levels! 

Then what`s the big deal about leaving abroad? Why would you leave the safe environment of your familiar surrounding, where you have your life settled and secured and take an unknown path to a foreign country, which native language you might not speak and therefore risk being lost, not understood or misunderstood? Why would you leave behind your family and friends to go to a place where you barely know a soul? Why would you risk to prolong your study when you come back home, because you may not be able to take all the exams at your home Uni on time or/ and they might not approve all the exams you took while being on Erasmus? Why would you struggle to manage completely on your own in a country you might need a permit to stay, a place you might feel you don`t belong to? Why would you leave your nice cozy home, to go to a city where you probably won`t have a shelter in the beginning or have to change rooms often and never feel you have a home? Why would you put yourself through all these?  

Because you want to do something good for yourself! Because you want to grow, to develop, to challenge yourself, to expend your comfort zone, to gain knew knowledge not only about the academic filed you are in, but also about the world as a whole. Because you want to learn how to take care not only of yourself, but of others as well, to learn how to live on your own, yet together with others, how to be frugal yet to share. Because you want to discover more about other cultures, other people, other countries, other worlds, but also about yourself, about your own country, your own inner world. Because you will figure out more about communicating with people coming from various backgrounds and with different ways of thinking which you might not always agree with, but you will learn to give space to people for being themselves. You will realize that at some point it won`t really matter which passport people have, but what they carry in theirs hearts and minds! Because you will meet new people, some of whom will become quite good friends of yours.Yet you will also learn more about keeping in touch with your old friends and how happy you are for having them.You will come across different boundaries some of which you will want to cross and some you will decide to keep. You will learn how difficult it could be to be respectful to different type of people and to yourself at the same time. You will learn not to be indifferent, to take a stand, either for something you believe in, or someone you care for (it could be yourself as well). You will become aware not only of other people`s stereotypes but also about your own. You will learn to distinguish what is important for you in your social, personal, working and studying environment. You will develop skills you have always wanted or maybe didn`t even know you might need (for example cooking, cycling, dressing fast when you are late, being organized, strategies about managing with stress). You will find out that making mistakes is human, and that you are human (not a robot, not a perfection)! You will realize that sometimes giving up on something might mean moving on. You will have a great opportunity to learn how to adapt, how to develop your flexibility, yet stay true to what matters to you. You will understand how important it is to ask for social and emotional support and help. You will figure out that you don`t need much material possessions, but inner ones, those that you don`t need to carry in a luggage, but those you always carry even when your heads are empty. You will learn that the best friend you need is yourself, so be self-compassionate as you are with your other friends! You will value social networking even more. Because you will have many new homes around the world when you visit your new friends. Because you will find out how to deal with whatever difficulties came across, how to enjoy every opportunity, how to be more patient with others and yourself especially, how to be resourceful when your room is quite small, but you need to dry your cloths somehow. Because you want to become an independent person, ready to face the various challenges coming on your way. Because you want to be prepared for the demanding world that becomes more and more global.

Living abroad is a life-changing and enriching experience that you should go through for yourself and came out of it as a new person, yet still yourself. It depends what you will do for yourself! Just do something!
Become a stranger to get to know the world and yourself better!