The time has come: a semester abroad. Months of research, thousands of dollars in flights, and countless hours of Instagram stalking have all lead up to these four months of adventure and travel. But before you ring in Oktoberfest and sample Barcelona’s best sangria, there are a few struggles that come with the application process of what will undoubtedly be the best four months of your life.

First and foremost, you have to figure out where you’re going.

Which proves pretty difficult when you can’t even find your school’s Study Abroad Online Portal.

And once you do, trying to decipher between hybrid and island programs is an event in itself.

You face the moral struggle of choosing a host country based on the party scene versus a host country based on the academic opportunities

Which is even harder upon realizing you don’t actually know anything about the countries in Europe.

Once you’ve finally decided on a location, you begin the application of a few simple forms and some contact information, an easy endeavor- only to find out that the application requires a literal encyclopedia of essays and novel of recommendations.

With every one of the essays revolving around the same two Godforsaken topics of your goals and plans while abroad.

So you struggle to find essay topics that don’t revolve around your goals of getting drunk at Oktoberfest and hitting up the beaches of Ibiza.

Which kind of makes you rethink your whole reason behind studying abroad.

But you quickly find a way to justify your questionable study abroad goals and resume the hellish undertaking of the application process.

You realize that the teacher recommendations are going to be a bit harder than expected, considering you haven’t conversed with a single professor all semester

And then get blitz-attacked by what you thought would be the simplest part of the application process: the passport scan, which turns out to be nauseatingly inconvenient if you’re passport is at home while you’re at school.

Finally, the heavens have opened and your application is submitted.

Now, the waiting.and waiting.

and more waiting.

Without a definite response on your application, when people ask you about your study abroad plans, you respond with “I hope to be in ____” And as excited as you are to be abroad, no one takes your plans seriously without an application decision.

In the meantime, you have to figure out housing for the semester you’re away.

And mentally accept you're being so desperate that there’s a good chance of you subletting a potential serial killer.

Finally, the time has come to submit the application fee.

But when you get that acceptance letter, you know that these four months of adventure, amusement and alcohol will be worth every struggle.