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I have a confession to make. Several, in fact, but only one that concerns you. If there was a contest between Oxford University and the University of Michigan - I might choose Oxford.
Do not misunderstand me. I have been raised to bleed maize and blue. I do not miss a football game on pain of death. I am on the mailing list for Zingerman's delicatessen. I actually know the distance in miles from the Big House to my sorority. Yet for some reason, I still felt the need to study abroad second semester junior year.
I applied to Oxford University on a whim. You know those pamphlet trees that exist in every office in every part of U-M, selling study abroad, tutoring, the intricacies of a major in Earth Sciences? Grabbing the sheet on Oxford/Cambridge, I said to myself, "If I get in, that's that." And then, to my astonishment, I did.
So standing in Newark Airport amidst fifty other visiting students, one looking like she had just stepped out of a Gucci advertisement, the other like he had just stepped out of a bomb shelter from 1992, I could not help but wonder, "What the devil have I gotten myself into?"
That was just the beginning of it. It's like the Louis Armstrong quote: "Man, if you have to ask, you'll never know." Throwing yourself into a new experience, into a new country, will inevitably bring with it a host of unknown experiences. Neither totally positive or negative, the only way to discover them is to peek around the door. Not everyone feels the need to do so. Some are perfectly content to keep the door closed. Fortunately for me, I am not one of those people.
Here I have had opportunities that I have never had before, and am unlikely ever to have again. True, some of that may be attributed to studying at the English-speaking world's oldest university. Before my first tutorial, my tutor advised me to "Meet him in front of the moat." The moat? Toto, I do not think we are in Kansas anymore.
Yet before Oxford, college seemed a series of compromises. Not everyone is hiring, and I needed to build up a resume. I needed to impress my future employer. I needed to ensure that I would have one. And somewhere along the way, I lost my desired direction - my system's hard drive was bound to crash. Studying abroad gave me the freedom to take a pause, breathe, and reboot. I am sure I am not alone in this.
I got back into acting. I was the drama geek in high school, but I decided on an English major instead of a purely "arts" degree, for safety's sake as well as academic good sense. Since Michigan is separated into schools, and their drama program is highly ranked, it became near impossible for me to unite my LSA major with a true investment in theater. Oxford's flexible, largely student-produced, and illustrious theater tradition led me back to my first passion, and I was cast as a lead in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night."
My purpose is not to malign the Michigan experience. U-M is a fantastic school, despite some of its administrative shenanigans. I would not have gone anywhere else. In fact, returning to my friends, family, and school will be a singular pleasure, having learned to appreciate them all the more by my absence. Yet Oxford has given me something even greater than an education.
It has given me back myself. That is the beauty of studying abroad.
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