Freshman year of college has always been known as one of the most intimidating encounters in any individual's lifetime. Leaving the comfort of your own home and the acceptance of familiar faces around you seems almost unbearable. Well, at least you’re not going to a school 4,120 miles away.

Sonia Ikram, a freshman who anticipated on attending Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, was accepted into a full-year study abroad program an ocean away in Florence, Italy. Applying to schools, she never thought she would find herself in a different country, but because of a scholarship opportunity she decided to take the offer and book a one-way ticket to Italy.

Preparing for the trip was an overwhelming experience in itself. Packing, she explained, was not the easiest thing to do. Imagine having to fit a year’s worth of clothes into two suitcases and a duffle bag. She also had to mentally prepare herself for the culture shock of not only living on her own, but living on her own in a foreign country where she only knew how to say Ciao, Bella, and of course Pasta. Luckily, making friends seemed to be easier than learning the language. Everyone in the group had been thrown into a new life in an unfamiliar country leaving them to rely on each other and form new friendships.

“Freshmen year everyone is eager to make friends because they want to fit in somewhere." Sonia told me. "Since we were going to a foreign country and there were millions of unfamiliar faces, we just wanted to feel like we belong. That really pushed us to make connections quicker, because everyone wanted someone to explore with. Especially since it is such a small group of kids we all wanted to be a tight knit group, and that really encouraged us to open up and make friends quicker.”

A view of The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore or The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flowers. This photo was taken not far from Sonia's apartment in Florence, Italy.

Is there a big difference between going to school in the United States and going to school in Europe? Sonia would argue most definitely. Of course she still goes out on the weekends and lives in a building with all her classmates, but going to Italian clubs and living in an apartment building with floor to ceiling windows is where there’s a difference.

“We have to cook for ourselves, live in an apartment that has some non-college student residents, and navigate in such an unfamiliar city. We have to worry about if there are tourist spots on our way to class so we leave earlier, something that an American student on a campus would never have to think of." Sonia explained to me, "There are obviously negatives like not being able to go home for the weekend or see your friends, but we’re able to travel on the weekend and see the world like we never could in an American school.”

Another view of The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.

So when I asked if she regrets not spending her freshman year on a typical American campus, she does not without question. She has at least three more years of school to live on campus and if she had not taken this chance, she wouldn’t have been led to meet lifelong friends and travel the world with them. Her advice for students studying abroad: