Adventure traveling
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HOW TO AND HOW NOT TO PREPARE FOR A SEMESTER ABROAD
Studying abroad is something that I’ve always dreamed about, but now that it’s finally here, I don’t really know what to do with myself. Sometimes I have grand ideas, but the minutia involved in executing these ideas tends to get in the way.
all year.
NINA BLASDEL
Kappa Delta Nina is a sophomore studying hotel & restaurant administration. Yo u m a y c o n t a c t h e r a t nina.blasdel@okstate.edu.
Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve been finalizing the details of my upcoming semester, and I’ve been doing almost everything completely backwards. So, here’s my advice on how to, and how not to, prepare for a semester abroad. 1. DO tell people far in advance! I officially decided, mid-February, to study abroad in the upcoming semester. Unfortunately, this puts me in an awkward stage of life: about one-third of my friends know that I’ll be gone for the fall semester, one-third knew and forgot and the other third probably have no idea. Since I don’t really know which friends are in which category, I’m in conversation limbo half of the time. How do you casually say, “By the way, when school is out, I won’t be seeing you for six months?” You might want to make a Facebook post about it so everyone knows. 2. DON’T wait until the last minute to get your official documents. Last week, I realized that my passport had been expired for six months. The day I chose to reapply, just so happened to be April 15 – tax day – one of the busiest days the post office has
Almost every foreign institute requires your passport and/or visa number on the application, so make sure your documents are up-to-date far in advance. I learned the hard way that an expedited passport costs about twice as much as a normal one. 3. DON’T be afraid to ask dumb questions. The people working in the Study Abroad Office are there for one purpose: to make things easier on you. Regardless of your question, don’t be afraid to ask it. Plus, I have probably already asked all the dumb ones. 4. DO become bffs with Google. Google the heck out of the place you’ll be staying. Google your school, Google your apartment complex, Google your professors and no shame in Googling your classmates if that information has been released. It is seriously so exciting. 5. DON’T get discouraged. Applications, deadlines, letters of recommendation and all of the preparations are certainly less than enjoyable. Don’t get discouraged – it’s all part of the process. Each step gets you a little bit closer to the final destination! 6. DO attempt to get familiar with the customs and traditions of the country you’ll be going to. This is super important. Spending months in a new country is going to be hard enough, so do your homework before you go and research the place! 7. DO follow your heart. If there’s a place you’ve always wanted to go, go there. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, do it. I can’t stress this one enough. I’ve always dreamed of living in Italy and, now, I’m doing it. Granted, I haven’t left yet but, for me, the hardest part about studying abroad is the decisionmaking process. Decide you want to do it and decide sooner rather than later.
THE OTHER SIDE OF STILLWATER
Stillwater, Okla., where Garth got his start, where JAMIE the Cowboys like to play BARNES and where we all go to Sigma Pi school. Stillwater offers Jamie is a junior studying Landscape Architecture. You may some exciting things for contact him at james.barnes@ okstate.edu. us to do, but the Stillwater scene undergoes a dramatic transformation around the beginning of May. When all of the college students leave town after finals, the town of Stillwater changes from a college town to a different kind of small Oklahoma town.
There are usually a handful of people who stick around during the summer. That number, though, tends to go up the older we get. When you stay in Stillwater over the summer, you get to see the real character of this curious little city. You get to experience the town and all the townies. The traffic is tremendously better during the summer, because 25,000 people are not trying to traverse around town. It is truly incredible when you can go from one side of town to the other in a few short minutes, without having to interact with nearly as many other cars. Going
to the strip takes on a new meaning – you don’t have to wear your cute outfits. It is completely acceptable to wear basketball shorts and a tank. And there are not going to be very many people competing with you for best dressed. A lot of people get to experience little bits of summer in Stillwater when they come into town for recruitment events, bid day or Camp Cowboy. Besides those occasional visitors, though, the people who stay in town will get to know each other much better. Of the handful of people, any one person may know each of those other people, who will know at least a couple other people. And so, your inner circle of summer buddies will eventually grow, and you will have the opportunity to meet or get real chummy with most of the college students staying in Stillwater over the summer. My favorite part of summers in Stillwater is that there is almost always something to do. Because there are so few people around, when one of them is trying to hang out, everyone will get a call. There are some great stories that will come from the good times had during the summer; there are just enough people to have fun and plenty of free time without classes. So there are some extremely fun memories from summers in Stillwater, and I can’t wait for one last summer here, hanging out with my peeps.