If I had to give one piece of advice to students entering college, commuting or not, it would be to study abroad.
I give this advice with adequate experience as I have studied abroad twice. During my sophomore year (Fall 2023) I spent a semester in the Netherlands. Emerson College has a unique program called Kastell Well. In this program you live in a castle in a rural part of the country close to Germany. The medieval castle was beautiful and the surrounding village was full of kind people and many small farms. We travelled practically every weekend to different European cities, so coming back to the peaceful Dutch countryside was a respite.
I loved being abroad so much, but the castle was Emerson’s main program. There are many other shorter ones but I wanted to get more credits out of the trip. Luckily we have an expansive abroad department. Through some quick research I discovered Emerson was involved in exchange programs with different schools. I applied for two, one in Spain and one in Switzerland. Ultimately I decided to only continue with my Switzerland application and a few months into my junior year I discovered I was chosen to participate in the exchange program. In the second half of my junior year (Spring 2025) I went to Europe again, this time staying in Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano is named after the large lake the city resides on, Lake Lugano. It is beautiful and surrounded by mountains. The everyday view I had walking to classes was unreal. Switzerland has three different national languages, German, French, and Italian, these are based on what part of Switzerland you reside in. My temporary school, Franklin University, was in the Italian region. Lugano was extremely close to Italy, and we found ourselves going often.
Being abroad was the best experience of my life. I travelled all of the time; by the end of my two semesters I had visited 14 European countries, some more than once. I had been to museums that I learned about as a child and saw artifacts from history books. I saw the paintings and actual brush strokes on the canvas of Van Gogh and Rembrandt.
I made friends from all over the world. I hiked a mountain by myself and ate pasta in Italy and pierogies in Poland. Basically, it was an unreal experience that I couldn’t have gotten any other way.
Both of the times I was abroad there was academic travel. We would go with professors to see what we were learning about. At Emerson we went to Amsterdam and Prague. At Franklin I went to Sicily for my organized crime class– it was a highlight of my trip. Being able to see firsthand the monuments and documents you learned about, even if they are in a different language, is so unbelievably amazing.
In general getting an international education shifts your perspective. You learn different teaching styles and focus on different aspects of the material.
While the classroom is so important abroad, it is the life lessons that you learn. Especially when commuting. Commuting makes it hard to become an individual. Yes you are an adult now, but you are an adult that still goes to school and lives at home. Sometimes it is hard to separate that from highschool. Being in a country on your own is the highest level of independence. You aren’t even in the same time zone as your family!
Studying abroad is transformative. You have to learn how to navigate buses, trains, airports, most of which are in different languages. You have to learn how to communicate and adapt to different social norms. By studying abroad you gain crucial life skills that you can’t learn without experiencing it.
As a commuter going to a different country may seem like a giant step, and it is. But it is worth it. I was nervous both times I left to go abroad, and despite how badly I wanted to, I cried, both times. Once I was on the plane though, it was just a matter of time until I would be back home, so I was determined to make the most of it.
Once you get there it is like freshman year moving into the dorms again. Everyone is trying to find friends. As a commuter you may not have experienced the chaos of the first week of freshman year, but you find your friends fast from it. Everyone is in the same boat.
If you have ever wanted to see what the dorm life was like, study abroad. It is easier to justify than a dorm that is drivable distance from your home. Sometimes, at least in my case, it costs less than living on campus. It is also much better than housing because you are in a different country.
Different schools have different housing abroad, but either way you will be living more independently.
Most schools have extensive abroad lists and there are many scholarships! It may seem impossible, but truly it is so doable. Going abroad cost just as much, possibly cheaper, than when I lived on campus.
I believe it is the perfect way to get out there and explore the world and yourself. Everyone is in the same boat as you, so trust me you will find your crowd.
By Isabel DeSisto
Isabel DeSisto is a senior majoring in Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College. She is an avid traveler and is always looking to go on a trip. While adventurous, there is nothing she enjoys more than hanging out with her dogs and reading a book.
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