Outside Your Comfort Zone: Fully Experiencing Study Abroad

By: Talia Walters ‘20

I want to make it clear that the “standard” study abroad options aren’t bad. The key is that your comfort zone is something that only you are able to measure, and decisions based off of that are yours alone. I just don’t think the image of a great, vast world filled with billions of people who aren’t the cookie-cutter USC student is well-presented to students traveling abroad. USC’s programs are created to file large numbers of students through a standardized and safe system of “experiencing” other cultures without any care of the overwhelming self-exploration that travel can provide. Entire parts of the world are ignored despite my own experience, and many other’s experiences, traveling there, being entirely safe, and realizing so much about myself and the world around me. Choosing a place outside your comfort zone to study abroad can open up a whole new world of discovery during your semester away, and I think that’s the point of even studying abroad in the first place. So go somewhere you never even dreamed of before, and learn something about yourself you never expected. In order to help with measuring your own “sliding scale” comfort zone, I’ve put together a list of unique and different study abroad programs that aren’t as advertised by USC. For a lot of people, the gate that keeps them from going somewhere out of their comfort zone is the language requirements. I think they make sense, and they’re there for a reason, but that doesn’t make them any less frustrating. First, if you have the time, I would recommend just taking the two semesters of any language that are usually required to go somewhere like Russia, Japan, or Morocco. Otherwise, if you don’t have time to study a new language, this list is English-language study abroad programs organized by the most “comfortable” to the least “comfortable.”