I speneeds weeks living in La Jolla, California, this summer. I shared a hotel room, a bed and two bathrooms with seven other girls and lived on a budget, all for the first time. All with people I knew little to none at all. Whether or not you choose to study abroad or take a road trip with a handful of your closest friends is up to you. However, either way, I recommend challenging yourself to experience living in this way, far from friends and family at home. In other words, everything we know to be comfortable and predictable. It's not necessary to travel very far either. For example, California is 24 hours away by car and over two hours away by plane. There were over 1,000 miles separating me and the people I knew best and the routines I had become familiar with. It wasn't anything fancy per se. It wasn't Europe or Asia or any place out of borders. Nonetheless, there was enough space between me and everything I knew to be familiar that I had to lean into everything that was uncomfortable. New places, new questions, new needs ... all of this equaled a new understanding of independence.
Based on my own experience, let me be the first to say it's easy and not unusual to coast through college, especially in dormitory life, without having to lift so much as a finger. Sure, roommates might be difficult and food might be less than ideal, but let's face it, universities these days don't exactly encourage independence. I didn't cook or pay rent monthly or travel far to work. Having all basic necessities within arm's length or down the hall has created a lifestyle of dependence for many young adults who, like myself, need to be encouraged by someone, anyone, to experience providing for themselves before reaching what many refer to as the real world or adulthood. The problem with this mentality is that students, or young adults living at home, quickly form expectations that prove harmful down the road. If you wait until graduation to apply for your first job or cook a meal for yourself, you've done yourself a disadvantage.
A summer in California may seem like a strange place to learn life skills. The beach was nice enough, but it doesn't teach you much. Or so I thought at the beginning of the summer. As it turned out, I learned a lot from the beach that summer. It had nothing to do with the importance of sunscreen or drinking water or knowing how to surf. I learned that it isn't very fun to go alone. Community makes the typical beach-going experience 10 times better. I learned that almost immediately. I learned that people enhance a trip to the shores, but there is also a time and a place for the ocean to serve as a retreat into the quiet. That taking a nap on a towel in the sand is sometimes just as needed as jumping on a surf or boogie board with a group of other people. I learned that in many ways, it wasn't about California. It was about going some place new. I am fairly certain that I could have gone anywhere for 10 weeks, with the same people, and learned the exact same lessons.
