Beauty of Field Trips Abroad

One of the big educational points of the European Union (EU) program within the IES Abroad Freiburg network is the trips to travel across the EU institutions and gain a deeper understanding of the European Union through history, its institutions, and historical backgrounds. After a couple of weeks of travel within the program, the highlight for me was my time in a little French city known as Sélestat.

Grasping “Study Abroad” on a trip

Sélestat, a small French city on the border near Germany, left an impact on my reflection abroad. Throughout my time in Freiburg, it never occurred to me how far I was from home, nor did I look too deeply into the fact that I was away from home. Roughly 4,000 miles away from home does not translate into anything aside from the abstract. Before my time abroad, I was in an internship in Denver for two months, and before that was my college, where I was away for eight months out of the year. The time away from home has led to this feeling that my time abroad is no different from my time living in dorms in Denver or commuting to classes in Wisconsin, but then came the student field trips away from Freiburg. While we went across the city on trips, off to Berlin and into France to visit the Fort de Mutzig, and to all the regions, I began to see through the abstract and realize I am away from home. The realization of how far I have gone would hit me when we went to Sélestat for a field trip. 

During my time there, I got to have a better understanding of the people in my program and the friends I have met here. That’s when it hit me that I was abroad. Walking through the narrow streets of the city and talking about my France made me realize the gravity of what Study Abroad is. Sitting at the table and talking about our plans across Europe made me realize that the community here is my family for the next four months. It made me sit down and understand that abroad really means this is my home, and I have the opportunity to make the most of it. To make this home something meaningful, it is up to me to make all of those days count and to take action to form a family and group of friends that feels like home. It would be up to me to define ‘home’. While nerve-racking for sure, this sudden realization also helped me come to terms with an empowering feeling that I can make my time abroad into a home. I felt most proud and content with this feeling, and if I could pinpoint any moment, it would be that seat with my friends in Sélestat.

Beauty of Field Trips

        One of the beauties of field trips was that I discovered the power I hold when living abroad, and while I dove into that realization in the previous paragraph, here are some other beauties I found out about field trips abroad. 

• You get to know your groupmates even better; they become a community and a grander family that you form during your trips. Now that all of you aren’t limited by homework, you have the opportunity to appreciate your shared study abroad experience.
• You get to improve your photo-capturing skills. While strange, it is key to capture amazing photos of your time on trips, and trust me, you will be crouching and positioning yourself in ways that look silly if it means capturing the perfect picture.
• You will get to taste rather yummy cuisine. In Sélestat, I ended up eating Italian, and it was so yummy! I couldn’t have asked for better, although I will get the opportunity to eat French cuisine during our trip to Paris for the EU Institutions.
• Lastly (although it certainly is not least) are the memories you make along the way. I know it sounds cliché, but you really do make lasting impressions when away. I’m so glad I did this trip, and that I got to spend time away from Freiburg; it set me on the path to better grasp what it means to be away from home.

Final Remarks

        Utilize field trips in many different ways, not just for Instagram photos but for defining what it means to study abroad. Don’t just use these opportunities as few and in-between; they are, after all, beautiful experiences you only get to have once. Field trips invite you to have shared experiences and live collectively with your friends. They invite you to be curious about yourself, seek a definition for studying abroad, and give yourself the tools to orient yourself. These trips offer beauty to those who choose to take them head-on, and they invite you to be curious about the world. So feel anxious, feel nervous; these trips abroad are meant to unmake those feelings and give that power for you to define your experience abroad. Ask a friend for their plans and tag along; share the lived experiences because they truly become staples of what it means to be abroad.