Amongst foreign language majors, there’s often the expectation that your semester abroad will be so incredible that, after graduation, you’ll end up moving back to the city/country where you studied. There are visions of strolling down cobblestone streets, adopting European fashion, and traveling to breathtaking places. You’ll teach English for a while, maybe even fall in love with and marry a local, and end up staying indefinitely. Before I had even decided to study Spanish at UMass, that was how I’d always imagined my life playing out. Boy, was I wrong.

In the fall of my junior year, I spent five months in Seville, Spain. While I certainly enjoyed my time in Spain, my opinion about eventually moving overseas were turned completely around. The experience was much more of a struggle than I had originally anticipated, but ultimately helped me realize what my place within the Spanish major was. Continue reading →