I felt my heartbeat faster and faster as it sank in that another student and I alone had to navigate back to the hotel from class on our first day in the giant city of Paris. As we retraced our steps back to the metro station, I felt the soft breeze on my face and the juxtaposed hum of city life rush all around me. When we finally made it back to the metro station, we realized that neither of us had service, so we had to rely on a mix of memory, instinct, and knowledge to figure out which train to get on and which stop to get off. Needless to say, we figured it out and made it back in one piece, as I am now sitting here writing this paper.

My first-year study abroad experience enhanced my independence, and most importantly, my understanding of the world around me. At that moment, navigating the metro system seemed like one of the scariest things I had ever done, but after a short period of time it was just another daily tool. I believe this experience encompasses the biggest lesson I learned while abroad; you have to face your fears head on, for overcoming them is not teachable, only learnable. In other words, you must go through your fears, not around them. In life, you will get thrown out in the middle of the dance floor, and you will feel like it is a pivotal moment and that you must come up with something impressive, something perfect. But the truth is, nobody is or ever will be, and nobody was really paying that much attention to your silly dance moves anyway; everyone was paying attention to their own.

So, in the name of life, in the name of your existence, do the scary thing. Travel internationally for the first time and do it with people you've never met before… just get out into the world. Afterwards, you will realize how worthy it really was. How you felt genuine fear, made unlikely friends, got yelled at by a foreign bakery worker, gone somewhere you had only ever dreamt of going, cried, felt spontaneous, felt homesick, got new hope, and became completely engulfed with the human experience. Life is to be lived. Growth and comfort do not coexist.

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” - David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Name: Ever Pratt-Hart
Status: Freshman
Major: Film Studies
Hometown: Grand Ledge, Michigan
Program: First-Year Seminar Abroad in France - Place and Space in Paris