By Spencer Rojas
The most impactful thing that I have taken away from my study abroad experience is the people I met and the friends I’ve made. In this picture are a few of the people I’ve gotten to know and lived and studied with. This photo was taken on my birthday! I got to live with students from all over the world and I made so many connections and friends I can’t imagine my life now without them.
Next is a picture that signifies the amount of cheese I consumed in the Netherlands. I took a day trip to Amsterdam with my friend Maddy and we decided to make it a cheap day and eat a bunch of free cheese. If you are ever in Amsterdam looking for a cheap way to eat, hit up all the cheese shops and museums and sample all the cheese you want. Being in continental Europe it is really easy to travel, and from Arnhem, I was super close to Amsterdam and Germany. Unfortunately, I was not able to travel much, but I love Amsterdam so much that it was worth it.
This photo is from my last day in the Netherlands as I left for my 24-hour journey back to the United States. Like a lot of other students abroad, COVID-19 cut my program short. I was one of the first people to leave my group and it was a weird feeling leaving people I had grown so close to over the past 6 weeks. My journey started on the last train to Schiphol Airport at 1am for my 7am flight to London. The trains stop running in the Netherlands at 1am and start again at 5am, so I had to get to the airport very early. Then I was outside security until the British Airways desk opened up at 5:30am. I flew Amsterdam to London for a 6-hour layover before my flight back to the US. It was definitely the worst flight of my life because everyone was on edge due to concerns about health, but it was such a surreal experience that I am glad to have a good story.
This is what my school days looked like for the remainder of the semester. My host university switched fully online and so my classes switched to early morning to match the time difference. It taught me a lot about what topics I was passionate about because I was motivated to go to my law lecture, but not so much to my ethics lecture. My plan after undergrad is to go to law school and I was thinking about what field of law I wanted to go into. Taking this international law class opened my eyes to what I think I want to pursue in law school. If I was excited to wake up at 2am for my law lecture, I think I can do that for the rest of my life ha ha ha.
This last picture just sums up my attitude being abroad. It’s all about having fun and enjoying your time (no matter how short it maybe).
