An outstanding program and an invaluable experience abroad

My full year abroad in Berlin, Germany with the BCGS program was beyond a doubt the most formative year of my college career. Having the opportunity to immerse myself in another culture—to live, study, and thrive there, and have the resources and support to do so—has not only influenced the course of my studies in general, but it has also strongly shaped who I am as a person. Studying abroad opened up a space for a certain reflexivity in me—about my nationality, my culture, and my place in the world—that could only be made possible through an extended stay in a foreign country. Finding my own way in this place, adapting to an environment and customs that were different from my own, studying and living in a language that was not mine, and facing the challenges attendant to that situation both allowed me to mature as a person and provided me with invaluable life experience. To me, having the opportunity to live in and adapt to another culture is a vital aspect of any education, in the true sense of the word. In my mind, education is about more than ideas--it’s about becoming a citizen of the world and, in so doing, recognizing that your fate is deeply and beautifully entangled with the fate of others.
The BCGS program itself provided me with the support and resources to do so and accomplished what I think any exceptional study-abroad program should: it guided students through the transition into a new culture and provided us both with the resources and support network we needed to do so, while at the same time giving students the responsibility and independence to make their own life choices and have unique experiences of their own. The BCGS staff and faculty are also exceptionally wonderful people and it was a joy to participate in this program with them.