An Experience Studying Abroad

In primary school, I lived with my parents whom can watch over me most of the time. I had to follow their schedule like, when I can watch television, and what time I should go to sleep. Although I felt very intense at that time, I believed my parents knew the best for me. While in secondary school, I was surrounded only by my friends. Friends were really influential towards your life. I was a teenager when I started studying in my secondary school. When the first time I felt the freedom from my parents, I almost tried everything that my parents didn’t allow me to do such as sleeping at late night and smoking. Luckily, I found that they were harmful and bad to health that I quickly stopped from continuing to do

Life is about making choices, but some of them can even change our life. Two years ago I decided to come to America for my higher studies in Western Kentucky University. Although I knew it was really a challenge to me, this significant decision that I’ve made was going to change everything about my life and me. There are many things in life that can change the course of a person’s life. It can either make a positive impact or a negative impact on a person’s life. It’s always best to have the positive impact though. For me I have had a positive experience that has changed my life forever and that is coming to a different land and culture.

However, in order to become a successful human being, human nature is something that to a certain extent needs to be individually developed through one’s own challenges and experiences. At some point in a person’s life, significantly at an early age, they are ultimately helpless, therefore they need the attention and guidance of the family to be put on the right path to achieve and flourish as a human being. This is why the family is the core of humanization and education. This is where the values of family and responsibility play a vital role in guiding and promoting the right beliefs and concepts for the development of successful, well-developed human beings. This also means that mothers have an extremely important role in the East Asian families, because they nourish and educate their children from adolescence till they can become independently grown individuals (Magagna, Oct 13). Such nourishment and uprising, also requires the person to experience events solely by themselves, forming their own opinion and judgment. Therefore, requiring one to self-cultivate and prosper. While the Self-cultivation can be done anywhere, the most important and logical place to do it would be at home, where one receives the humanization and education from their parents. Even if the individual can’t go to college to develop such experiences, they can still receive the self-cultivation to the wider world at home from their family (Magagna, Oct 13). Therefore, this means that the

This drained my mother’s energy each and everyday. She would leave food at home as she went to work and dinners were usually me eating by myself. Although I had many siblings our schedules did not match up either, because we were the first generation in my family to get a genuine education so my sisters were always working so hard in school. It was tough going to school each day and having my friends’ parents dropping them off at school in the morning. This seems very silly but it had truly affected my and realize I could never be dropped off. As I became more involved in extracurriculars such as the school choir, sports, etc. I remembered how excited my friends were to show off their performance-not because they were exceptional but because their families would be attending. I could never ask my mother because it was the difference between having electricity that month or a sports event. Also I could not ask my father either because when my parents split apart my mother forbid my father from contacting me or remaining in my

No one can control what family they are born into nor what struggles are destined for them in the future. By the age of nine, my parents could no longer help me with my homework, rather they could only offer a few words of encouragement. The language barrier and cultural clash we experienced as a family put me at a disadvantage compared to other children my age.

While living in Vietnam, my family was well off. I did not have to worry about anything except for performing well in school. However, after moving to the US when I was about fifteen, my family struggled financially as my parents had a difficult time finding jobs. Knowing all the struggles that my parents were going through, I tried my very best in school. Moreover, I also helped my parents by taking care of house chores. Instead of staying after school for extracurricular activities, I came home early to take care of my younger sisters, help them with their homework, and make dinner for my family while my parents were off at work or night classes at community college. I started doing a lot of things that I had never imagined I would ever do as a teenager. I saw myself changing slowly, becoming more of a responsible

Due to my parents’ divorce, an unfortunate rift has been created in regards to my family life. However, bad things can always become good, and I have been able to turn this into a good thing. I have learned to care for myself, and at a young age, this is becoming rarer and rarer these days. I am able to cook, clean, do laundry, shop, and provide for myself. Many days have been spent by myself with a home to take care of, giving me many responsibilities that the average teenager would not need to worry about. This has prepared me for college life as well as beyond in the eventual real world I will find myself in. This fierce independence has shaped everything, from my personality to my daily life and

My habitual origin was a low-income household. That type of environment instills the mentality that “you have to get it how you live.” At the time, the unsubstantial status of my mother’s financial stability caused certain difficulties to come to pass. One instance of an difficulty that came to pass due to the unsubstantial status of my mother's financial stability was that she could only buy one pair of uniform for every other school year. I was aware of how the other children were mocking me behind my back, although some even chose to do so in front of my face. At the time I did not understand how materialistic parents unintentionally raise their children to be because my parents raised me to just seek happiness in every dark situation. I began to resent my parents for the financial difficulties I inherited.

I find myself struggling most during my adolescents, specifically on what I should do with my life and how. I relate heavily with Jin-Sang’s story, I grew up and identity in a Vietnamese household, the stereotype tends to be that Asian household have high expectation of their children academically and will do anything for them to achieve high successful career. Unfortunately, during my childhood and teenage years they had built this system onto me to lean towards a medical career in order to be successful. Their expectations have been more lenient by blanketing the term by suggesting they just wanted me to get a stable career so I can sustain living on my own, but I can still feel the pressure of them still desiring me to choose a successful career path that I do not want. Like

Texas A&M University-Central Texas is active outside of Killeen Texas through its Study Abroad program. According to Ms. Wood, Assistant Director of Academic Support for the Office of Student Success at Texas A&M University-Central Texas (2016), TAMU-CT has participated in three Study Abroad trips since Ireland in 2014. She stated that TAMU-CT averages 15 Students per year for each trip. The Study Abroad trips are open to all students at TAMU-CT as elective classes. Students approved will sit down with a financial aid advisor for advisement on funding for the trip. Wood also stated that TAMU-CT has faculty that travel overseas for their research and speeches. According to the Warrior Times Dr. Tang, assistant professor of Curriculum

When you approach the peaceful third floor of the Memorial Union, you are greeted by a medium and tranquil looking office with effulgent lights. The Study Abroad Center catches everyone’s eyes as they pass by because there are many staffs and opportunities to behold inside the placid office. It was established in the summer of 1993 and has been located in the Memorial Union ever since. Now, the Study Abroad Center’s office contains numerous scenery posters that trace Iowa State University’s history back to the early 1990s.

Education is a never-ending learning process that has always been a piece of our life. As education is a building block in our lives, we are eager to put profoundly into our education. Good education will lead us to the bright future. With the fast advancement of public opinion, we have entered an era of information explosion which the necessity of studying abroad has turned into a developing pattern among youth. Most of the students feel that studying abroad is better than studying in local universities. As the saying goes, “the grass always looks greener on the other side of fence.” In this way, I believe that considering abroad have extraordinary points of benefits.

“In 2006 to 2007, according to the data compiled by the Institute of International Education, 582,984 students from all over the world were enrolled in American colleges and universities in a wide range of fields” (Carter, Paragraph 2, 2008). The United States has the highest number of students who are coming to study abroad than any other countries. Each year, the number of international students coming to the United States to obtain degrees is increasing by thousands, and home countries of these students are primarily India, China and Korea, all located in the whole different continent. But what are the motives of students who are crossing the sea to study? Their goal of studying abroad is to experience diversity and to adapt attitudes

money to cover the expenses you plan to occur, and extra in case of an

My parents divorced when I was 11 and my mother left for Europe to be with her family. She definitely moved to USA when I was 16. I was really close to her while growing up so after she left I did not really have a female figure to look up too or to share my worries with. I grew up in the city and I was going to a private school; being the kid without a mother at home made me feel different but that was not something you could talk about in my dad’s house. He is a proud man and he put that pride in us so we had to keep our heads up all the time. Still, I had people talking on my back. I started keeping to myself from there and doing everything on my own without asking anyone help because that is how my dad wanted us to be: educated, successful, proud and independent so we wouldn’t have to deal with failure or rejection. I realize today that as people, we will always need someone’s help at some point in our life, and pride is not everything. It is hard letting go of old habits, but I am trying to be more of a people person because we can also learn from failure and rejection. They are all part of life.