With nostalgia for a country that I am only just now exiting, I write this blog from a bus heading into France after living in Spain for five months. Now that I’ve completed the formal ‘studying’ component of my abroad experience, I have many words to describe how I felt at various times: challenged, elated, humbled, fulfilled, confused, etc. However, the overwhelming and constant sentiment during these five months has been lucky. Lucky to have been paired with such a considerate and intelligent host mom, lucky to have come to Spain with 4 compatible travel buddies, and lucky to be in the position to spend a semester away from home.

My earlier blog posts detail living with a host mom and making friends abroad, so I will not delve deeper into those topics here. However, I will give advice on how I was able to make this experience possible fiscally. Studying abroad is notoriously expensive, and this is even more true when you add in personal travels. But, I wanted to optimize my time in Europe because I had never been to this continent before and don’t know when I will be back. I will have visited 9 countries and acquired quite a knack for budget travel in doing so. I have a new-found confidence in navigating public transportation (most cities have their own app) and utilizing cheap accommodations (reviews on Hostel World are important).

Additionally, it is my understanding that one cannot earn an income under a study visa, so this has been my first semester without a part-time job in many years. Submitting Mizzou Abroad scholarship applications ended successfully for me, and this is true for some other Mizzou students that I know as well. I will recommend looking into deadlines well ahead of time, as I missed the earlier Honors College study abroad scholarship application deadline.

With that said, I’ve been saving money I’ve earned from part-time jobs since I was fifteen. The money has been put to good use here by spending on experiences rather than material things. I haven’t bought many clothing items, and my personal travel keep-sake is always just a postcard. When in Alicante, my home base, I don’t eat out much because meals with my host mom are included and of course enjoyable. Though I will be leaving with less money than I came with, I gained so much in the thought-provoking places I’ve seen. I’ve toured the Anne Frank House, monasteries, the remains of a Roman theater, art museums, the Dachau concentration camp, congregations, the Islamic palace and fortress complex called the Alhambra, and parts of whole cities like Lisbon and Vienna on walking tours. This, to me, is worth every penny.

Overall, my recommendation to those studying abroad is to partake in experiences that you know will be a little uncomfortable. Every Tuesday and Thursday, the days that I had biology lab and lecture with Spanish students, was exactly that. Classes almost never started on time, so we would all stand outside the lecture hall and socialize for about ten minutes before sitting down for class. Doing both parts of this in Spanish was uncomfortable for me: both the informal socializing and the human biology coursework. I am only an intermediate-level Spanish speaker who has never been the ‘new kid’ a day in my life. So, it took a great deal of overcoming discomfort to be successful in this class. This all reinforced the idea that doing something uncomfortable in the moment will make things easier in the long run. Though it was hard to approach native Spanish speakers with my sentences full of errors, it was much more comfortable than the alternative of learning the semester’s course load alone. Additionally, the personal growth I experienced trying to integrate into a class of 70 Spanish biomedical engineering students might be helpful for future social encounters. What once seemed very daunting to me is now a little less so. Having had such positive experiences, even when I was unsure of myself, has helped me gain confidence and a willingness to push myself. I could not be more grateful for my abroad experience and look forward to seeing how it will continue to impact my life upon my return home.

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Learn more about this blogger’s study abroad program: University of Alicante: ALI Abroad