After being back home in America for the last few weeks, I find myself continuing to reflect on my experience studying abroad at Oxford. While I was excited to come home and see my friends and family, as well as have the luxuries of air conditioning and ice water, there are so many parts of Oxford that I miss greatly. I miss how fresh and delicious all the food was, the ease and availability of public transportation, and how beautiful the campus and city of Oxford was. But most of all, I miss the friends I made and the professors that helped make my Oxford education truly unforgettable. I feel like my worldview has been changed from this experience, giving me a greater perspective of my current life and how it varies from other students around the world.
If I had the opportunity to give advice to a prospective study abroad student, I would tell them the following. First, studying abroad has single-handedly been one of the best things that I have ever done, so if you are considering studying abroad even just a little bit, it is so worth looking into and finding a program that you are interested in. Secondly, you may be excited, nervous, and everything in between being so far from home, but you will build confidence throughout your time abroad and feel incredibly capable of anything by the time you are done. Lastly, as something who tends to stress about everything, I want to say that everything really does work out exactly as it is supposed to. You will make friends, you will find everything that you may forget, and you will build unique connections with your professors to help you succeed in class. I will forever be grateful that I studied abroad at Oxford, and I hope that future generations of students at Alabama will feel the same as I do!