Going to another country, this was going to
be my first time even on a plane. I�ve never
been on a plane before in my entire life.
So it doesn�t exactly hit you until you
look at your itinerary and you realize it�s
a week away that you fly out and when that
happens you're like wow this is real, I'm
going to another country. So really I was
just excited to get out there and see. Even
to be on a plane, I had seen it in movies
before, but I had never seen it for myself�and
that is the most amazing experience. . It
was amazing. The whole trip I said, �I�m
in London, England and I can�t believe this.
Maybe it was because I was exhausted, but
everything seemed iconic in a way. So there
was almost a euphoric sense to being on the
train. So even the most mundane things seemed
to be amazing. I was too busy looking out
the windows and like, �this is so cool,
we�re riding on the other side of the road!�
I'm from Cynthiana, which is a very small
town. So really it's not that diverse at all.
Being able to, even outside of Lexington,
experience new cultures, and those first 5
minutes in this new continent was pretty incredible.
I mean you walked down the street and you
would hear five different languages within
just that street and that was really cool
to me! So a typical day in our program would
be one in which we have class in the morning.
So the class was really interesting, it was
a very discussion-based class. The class will
generally contextualize what we�re doing
that day, so after the class we will either
go on a tour or go to a tour of a business.
I learned all about global communication and
how the world interacts with itself and the
members in it. And it�s really nice to see
how the lesson will tie into that tour. And
after that, typically we were given the rest
of the day to do whatever we wanted. We did
tour a lot and do the typical things that
everyone wants to go to, we also had the opportunity
to check out the markets and other things
and experience the nightlife and really live
as if we were native to the area. You would
have thought we were from London by week 2!
Getting to learn the tube was the most exhilarating
and equally terrifying thing. We were ready
to go explore this and go explore that, which
is great. I have to have my GPS everywhere
I go even in Lexington so having the opportunity
to be somewhere that I don't recognize anything,
and have to forge my way to where I need to
go was very eye opening I think and amazing.
I definitely am grateful that UK has a study
abroad program for first-generation students.
It would have been very difficult to navigate
that myself and to figure out what I needed
to do�and by when, how to prepare, how to
pack, how to do my finances, how to budget,
things like that, so o being able to have
them guide us through it was the most important
thing as a first gen student. It�s so so
helpful for first generation students because
I think that we need to give a guide to them
and give them access to the things that their
parents didn�t have. I mean myself that
that support was huge because my parents didn�t
go to college and they reminded me constantly
how jealous they were that first of all that
I was going to college and second that I was
going to London and my dad said that when
he was younger he could only dream of something
like that. It allows you to branch out and
find out more about your self that you might
not have known and it allows you to kind of
want more in life. It�s absolutely made
me know that I want to travel more in my life�.
realizing that there�s so much in the world
out there and I�m not afraid of it. It really
widened my view of what the world is and there�s
so much more I haven� seen and just thinking
about that and thinking of when I and I can
travel more and where I could go, just to
experience more cultures, more people. So
in terms of what I found out about myself
was that I was part of this huge network of
people in the world, I wasn�t just an American
and I wasn�t just Abel a student at UK,
I was a citizen of the world.
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