Please don't miss out on this opportunity

There are many people that do not get the chance to leave the country. Even before this program though, I was not one of those people. I was lucky enough that my parents granted me multiple opportunities to leave the country while growing up. Because of this, I thought I was prepared; I thought I knew what I was doing. Truth is, it's an entirely different ballgame.

Being in Prague, studying in international libraries, looking and walking across and through structures that are more than 3/4 of a millennia old, and many, many more, are all amazing. However, it's not about what you do, it's about who you do it with. I think the reason I thought I knew what I was doing was because when I did travel with my family, it was mostly sightseeing and dinners and such. I thought that's what studying abroad would be - seeing cool things, maybe interact with a few locals and call it a day. Maybe this is why I thought I knew anything about anything overseas: "I saw cool things outside of America, how different could this be." Well, when you're spending days with your family, let alone your friends and not going outside of your comfort zone, it's easy to say so. However, once you leave that comfort zone, once you take out/off those headphones and start interacting with locals, or even other people visiting, that's when the real perspective gaining begins.

There's such a culture shift it's not even funny. You go from "USA! USA! USA!" to "dang, I see where we get our reputation". If you don't know what I mean by that, ask someone who's studied even one week outside of America and they'll elaborate.

Prague especially was so amazing. My academics were never hindered due to my experience as well. My partner program (UNYP) to CEA CAPA was great, for many of their own reasons and I could talk about that for a while, but we're focusing on CEA CAPA. In the study center, there are those from America or Prague/Czech Republic. All of whom were professional, engaging, interesting, and used subjects and materials that further immersed you into the city and its culture! For example, I took a class called arts and science in the golden city, and you can imagine what we studied. Not only did we do field studies in real locations with guided tours from the professors themselves, we also had assignments which forced us to go out and do some research on a given subject in itself. I use the term forced lightly, because it wasn't actually forced, it was just assigned. There was absolutely no resistance on my end from completing those tasks, because they were absolutely amazing, but that class is just one example. I could go on and on about the others, but the point is exactly what the review title states - please don't miss out on this opportunity!