The Travel Bug
I know, I know. It's cliche.
How unique. I went abroad (to Bangalore) for the first time and now I want to travel as much as possible and tell everyone else to do the same.
But it's cliche for a reason. Traveling abroad challenges you to do new things, breaks down your assumptions about the world, shows you alternative ways of thinking and doing, and expands your comfort zone. And on top of the that, it's a hell of a lot of fun. To me, even my short three weeks abroad have been an essential part of my undergraduate career in terms of the growth and learning I got from the trip.
Part of that is that I don't come from a family that travels. I know people who got their passport at age 2, but I didn't get mine until the tender age of 22. My family brought us up and down the East Coast, so I've been from Orlando to Montreal, but never left this time zone before and only very rarely flew. Some of that was financial, and I certainly have fulfilled the stereotype of the poor college students, so I never really expected to be able to go that far in college either. But my advisor constantly encouraged me to look for ways to go abroad, and when I found potential funding opportunities he and other administrators helped me craft my applications. So I was able to at least partially fund my time abroad to make it possible.
Moral of the story is, if you accept that travel should be a part of your undergraduate experience, remember to look into whether people are actually going abroad and what their experiences are like. While you can most likely manage to travel no matter where you go, I know from experience it's helpful to have some advice and support from people who have done it before. Without any further ado, this is what it looks like to travel through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in South India: