Why Everyone Should Go Abroad (At Least Once) in their Life
By: Shaurya Sarma (SEAS ’28)
GRIP: Engineering Research in Aachen, Germany
Global experiences are extremely important because they force people outside of their comfort zone. Aside from the expected differences such as language, food, and culture, having an experience in a global setting transforms one’s views in a multitude of ways. For me, my global experience meant trying as many new things as possible. This occurred not only with traveling and friends, but also professionally, with my internship work. First off, I enjoyed doing many things spontaneously with the friends I had made during the program. Long-distance biking from a nearby city. Catching a train to a small town on a Saturday morning. Or just finding a local restaurant to eat at in Aachen’s Kaiserplatz, a food and shopping district. The lifestyle was almost unlike anything I had ever had back at home, and every day I realized how grateful I was for this opportunity. I appreciated the exciting new things I got to see day to day, but I also learned to appreciate things that I missed from home. Air conditioning is something I will never take for granted again. The summer heat in Germany was brutal.
Furthermore, I was pushed to experiment and learn from my internship work as well. Being in Germany exposed me to new fields and topics that I had previously not known much about. I learned all about how additive manufacturing could be used in conjunction with XR technology, which is something I had not considered. I believe many global experiences provide similar learning opportunities, which can be something incredibly valuable to bring back home and incorporate into one’s professional career.
Lastly, my language exchange experience was also extremely eye-opening. While I was interested in learning German just out of curiosity, being able to use it so frequently in my day-to-day activities was rewarding. Simple interactions like buying groceries and buying a ticket for the bus became opportunities to test my in-class knowledge in the real world. While it was very intimidating to go from zero language skills to having to communicate with real people, being abroad was the perfect setting to develop these skills. It made me appreciate the beauty of knowing multiple languages and allowed me to develop relationships with other German students in a way I wouldn’t have been able to without being able to speak the same language. I think going abroad is, of course, not only a fun experience, but an uncomfortable step outside one’s comfort zone that everyone should try once in their life.
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