At the Syracuse Center School in Florence, Italy, there are roughly 300 students studying there this semester. Of those 300, 200 of them are Syracuse students and the rest are students from other universities around the country including places like Harvard and Cortland. With this mix of students comes different reasons as to why they chose to study abroad in the first place.

As an engineering student, people often question how we're able to study abroad with our crazy course schedule. Luckily, Syracuse makes it super easy for us to keep up with the rest of our peers to graduate on time while still gaining the same experiences of those with lighter course loads.

Personally, part of why I chose Syracuse in the first place was because I knew I wanted to study abroad in college and many other schools don't make it possible. I've always wanted to study because I wanted to gain first-hand experience about what it was like to live in a foreign country with a host family who doesn't speak a ton of English. It's also the perfect opportunity to travel and there is so much to see in both Italy and Europe as a whole.

I began to ask my friends why they chose to study abroad and grouped together the most common responses below.