How Studying in the UK Opened Up My World
When I first moved from the United States to England to study at Royal Holloway University of London, I knew I would spend the next few years experiencing a new country. What I did not know at the time was how many new countries I would get to explore, and how comfortable I would become with traveling, moving, and immersing myself in new cultures.
As an American, one of the highlights of living in England was the proximity and ease of travel to other European countries. I had seen friends from back home going on a year abroad from their US-based universities, usually to somewhere like Barcelona or Paris, and using their weekends to cram in as much European travel as they could. A perk of being based in the UK full-time is that I could take my time – I had years to hit the destinations I was hoping to check out, and I saved a lot of money by waiting to find cheap flights before traveling.
Some of my favorite (and most unexpected) travel opportunities during my uni years came from befriending people who also came from abroad. When we didn’t have classes, I got to visit friends in Portugal, Italy, and Slovakia. Visiting a new place with a local is a completely different experience to exploring it on your own – I got a personal tour guide and a place to stay on all of these trips, and I loved getting to meet my friends’ families and see where they grew up. Sure, I could have booked a trip to Lisbon by myself and visited on my own time, but going with a friend who was from there meant I got to discover local spots I never would have found as a regular tourist.
When the time came to look for a job after graduation, lots of people asked me whether I’d stay in the UK or return to the US. However, living abroad had given me a taste for adventure, and I no longer felt limited to just these two countries. If I was capable of moving abroad on my own once, why not do it again? My first post-uni job took me to the south of France, where I worked as an English teaching assistant in a French high school. France was very different from England, but my first big move had equipped me with the skills I needed to establish myself in a new place again. At the end of the school year in France, I headed to Canada for a summer job on a horse ranch. Moving to new places no longer intimidates me, but rather excites me, and I credit that to the first big move I made to the UK when I was 18.
I loved getting to know the UK while I lived there, and I truly felt like I got to immerse myself in British culture during my time at uni. I still love visiting friends in England and am always excited to return to what is now a familiar place and second home – but now, I also get to visit friends in other parts of Europe, and when I want to travel someplace new, I’m an experienced enough traveler to know I can make it happen on my own. When it comes to looking for jobs, I no longer feel limited to just the places I’ve been to: I know that I can thrive anywhere, and I never would have developed that skill without first choosing to study across the pond.
-Sophie
