Dear Kate,
I feel like a lot of people feel like they're getting away with something here. A semester full of travel, good food and not worrying about your GPA? Sounds like quite an escape to me.
My program in particular, IES, (officially the Institute for the International Education of Students) is sometimes referred to as "Isn't Exactly School" or "Incredibly Easy Semester." I beg to differ with those descriptions. My classes are enjoyable and engaging, but admittedly, like most other abroad programs, there is nowhere near as much work as at Tufts.
In a way, it's kind of nice - I actually enjoy the reading I do have, and weekend trips never have to be cancelled because of mountains of work. I'm taking exactly one class that could actually apply to my major, and although I'm now realizing that I have a lot left to do in the rest of my time at Tufts, I can't say it's bothering me too much.
I've talked to a lot of people who literally see their semester abroad as one big vacation with just one real goal: to learn the language of their host country (and some people don't even have a desire to do that.) It's a time to get away from major requirements, distribution requirements, and, basically, dealing with real life. Funnily, I never thought of it that way until I was here.
But for a place where everyone thinks they're shirking their responsibilities and putting their lives on pause, I've never talked so much about what I want to do with my life. Even simple introductions - "Hi, I'm blank, I'm from blank, and I'm majoring in blank,"- end up in discussions of where I want to live in five years, where I want to go to grad school and how I'm going to use my majors. I suppose when you're just meeting someone, asking them what they want to do with themselves is an accurate way to get at least a cursory impression of who they are.
For me, though, this whole conversation is a little anxiety-inducing. I have about five thousand different interests, I've changed my mind about my major every week since freshman year, and I can barely decide what I'm going to wear tomorrow, let alone where I want to live in a few years.
So it was a little disconcerting when I started actually having some answers to these questions. They still change every day, but having a response - at least a few vague options that I might pursue - is a good feeling.
Now that I think about it, maybe this focus on the future is occurring because the semester abroad is such a milestone. It marks the halfway-point (or the more-than-halfway-point) through college. And everyone knows that this is going to be the four months of their lives that they tell the most stories about (you can bet I'll be telling people about accidentally breaking into the grounds of a UNESCO World Heritage Site via a hiking trail and a construction site for years to come.) So now that this huge event is here and is happening, we can't help but think, okay, what's next?
For me, the "what's next" mentality has been kicking in every day that I'm here in Vienna, but on a smaller scale. It's mostly my weekend adventures - like deciding at the absolute last minute to meet you in Barcelona last weekend (I still can't get over how good the food was there!), biking to Hungary, or planning ski trips in the Alps when I'm afraid of skiing in the Poconos.
On that scale, it's almost easy to have something to look forward to. Here, almost anything feels like an adventure. Remember how just going out in public was an ordeal for the first few weeks because of our nonexistent language skills?
Now that it's almost November, though, "what's next" is starting to include my next semester at Tufts. I just realized (as in, about an hour ago) that we're registering for classes REALLY soon. And it's just a little depressing that I have to figure out how in God's name I'm going to get a schedule for next semester that somehow fulfills all my requirements yet involves no morning classes before I figure out my glamorous weekend of skiing in the Alps.
Miss you,
Bridget
P.S. I found a 20-Euro bus to Prague, so I'll see you next weekend!
Bridget Reddington and Kate Peck are juniors majoring in English.
