Hola! My name is Miriam Wasserman and I am a senior at the UofA and I am an International Studies major with marketing and Spanish minors. My hometown is Lenexa, Kansas which is where I was born and raised. I studied abroad with two programs both with Academic Programs International. I spent my summer of 2016 in San Jose, Costa Rica for 5 weeks and I completed my fall semester in Salamanca, Spain.
Before I studied abroad I did not feel nervous until I made it to the airport. I remember before I got to my gate and saying to my parents “why did I think this was a good idea”. I was nervous for so many reasons and by the end of my first week, I was already in love with study abroad.
About 6% of study abroad is the amazing experiences that people see like cliff jumping, or seeing the Eiffel tower, or sipping amazing red wine in incredible places or anything else that seems fitting for Instagram. What most people don’t see is the other 93% that looks like this. It’s buying the cheapest item at a café for 5 minutes of Wi-Fi to buy another train ticket. It’s walking the streets of Dublin form 11:00pm to 3:30am and sleeping in the airport because you don’t want to have to pay another night for a hostel. It’s going to Sephora and using the tester makeup instead of buying it because you would rather use that money for another plane ticket to go to an amazing city. It’s standing in crowds it’s waiting in lines, it’s uncomfortable, it’s lonely and uneasy. And strangely enough, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Come meet Miriam and the other peer advisors at a Hogs Abroad 101 information meeting! These hour-long sessions are held Tuesdays and Wednesdays during the fall and spring semesters from 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm in the Center for World Languages, Literatures and Cultures (JBHT 207).
