My spring break in Ireland began this Thursday. For spring break my roommate and I are traveling to Barcelona, Spain and Frankfurt, Germany. It's amazing to be able to experience such affordable and easy travel while in Europe and to be able to see things I only dreamed about before. Still, with all that said, I find myself forgetting, or wanting to forget, that I am a student and I also have an internship to focus on. I'm by no means saying I'm the only student dealing with this. I know a lot of students struggle with the balance of studying and keeping up with classes but also trying to experience as much as possible while abroad. Still, I thought I'd give a little attention to this struggle most students who study abroad face.
Studying abroad is this constant tug of war between being a student and being a traveler. The experience is "once in a lifetime" so there's the need to see as much as we can. However, we are still "studying" abroad and have to keep up our grades and try to learn as much as possible. For some, grades aren't as important if given the "pass/fail" option, where you only need to pass the class for your transcripts. For Arcadia students, the grades we get are the grades on our transcripts. Please don't get me wrong, I love learning, and being able to take classes in another country specifically about that country is an amazing opportunity, but it's difficult deciding between studying or reading and going to a museum or a country I've never been to before. I love the classes I'm taking but it is difficult, as it is in America, to maintain a balance between leisure and schoolwork.
This tug of war has really come into play with my spring break travels. Something I've been asking myself for years is if a "break" from school is truly a break. It seems that spring break is simply a week for professors to have a break from the students faces while still giving work to do. Luckily, the classes I'm enrolled in this semester actually treat spring break like a break; a time away from class and work. However, this past Monday and Wednesday I had my class midterms. Five midterms in total, and too many excuses to really study. The Saturday before was my day trip to County Wicklow. The night before my Wednesday midterms I went out for dinner and to the Abbey Theatre to see Arlington, one of the craziest things I've ever experienced. (I honestly still don't completely understand it, but I highly recommend it.) Also there was the planning of spring break travels, along with making meals, cleaning, and occasionally sleeping. I am also enrolled in another class online where assignments must be turned in weekly (other Arcadia students who have studied abroad will know of this class I'm talking about). There's even the responsibility of keeping my articles on this blog up to date (I am currently writing this in my hostel in Barcelona). It's felt like all my time was booked up to the point that schoolwork was coming last. I did get time to study and I felt confident on my exams, but because of the struggle to balance my role as a student and my as a traveler I didn't feel as confident as I could have.
Being a student abroad is an incredible opportunity for anyone regardless of your background. The chance to explore a new culture, new sights, and new places does not come often. However, there's the whole "studying" part that gets overlooked sometimes. Maintaining decent grades and travel is not easy. But it is definitely a wonderful learning experience. While I know I have the responsibility of class work and blogging, I also have a responsibility to myself to explore and travel while I can, as everyone should try to do. I know I can't go everywhere, I can't see everything, and class work needs to come before travel, but I do believe it's more than possible to be both a student and a traveler.
