Study abroad: an adventure many find hard to leave behind

Nisha Agrawal wasn't quite prepared for the adjustment of a semester in Barcelona, and the diagram presented by the International Education of Students Center to the students upon arriving detailing the feelings she would go through didn't help.

"I wanted to come back home in two days, I was so scared," she said. "It's like a roller coaster."

A roller coaster of feelings, and also space. Agrawal went from a fairly spacious Woodcliffe Manor apartment to a room sizing up at 70 square feet, provided by a host family. Actually, she was only given 35 feet, as she had to share the room with another student in the program.

"My roommate and I decided that we were living in the closet," she said.

But cramped living conditions didn't dampen her spirit, and her choice to spend a semester in Barcelona quickly proved worthwhile.

After a week and a half of orientation, two weeks of language classes, and a group trip to the Canary Islands, Agrawal was adjusted to being there just in time to start classes.

For Agrawal, studying abroad just made sense.

"I had the time, and I thought, why not?" she said. "I had never heard of anyone who went and didn't like it."

So she started looking into programs at the end of September 2002, at the beginning of her junior year, and by October, she had filled out the application to spend spring semester in Barcelona, Spain. She was accepted into the Institute for the International Education of Students program as of mid-November.

The only taxing part of the process was applying for her Visa right after she got accepted. The turnaround time is usually 60 days, and she had to be in Barcelona on Jan. 6. Luckily, the mail brought her relief on day 34 or 35.

Agrawal decided to study abroad after completing her pre-med requirements after her sophomore year. With econ as her primary major, she was able to continue taking classes in her department and stay on track to graduate while overseas. And with the tuition being the same, or possibly a little less, she chose Barcelona over Baltimore.

Charm City couldn't compete with weekend trips to Grenada and Seville, a three-week Spring break touring Europe, and a semester of pass/fail classes in the midst of Spanish culture.

Every morning, she woke up at 7 a.m. and spent 45 minutes on the Metro or the bus to get to the Center in time for 9 a.m. class. Although it wasn't required, she took two classes taught in Spanish, and kept the other two to English. Her "Great 20th Century Painters" class included trips to local museums, and her modern architecture class went on walking tours throughout downtown Barcelona. On Mondays and Wednesdays, she was out of class by 2 p.m. and ready to explore -- but not without a stop in a caf first.

"It's such a caf culture over there," she said. "It's so much more relaxed."

Or at least, it was until she got back to her host home. Agrawal and her roommate were never allowed to use the laundry room on their own, and she felt like she had to ask if it was okay every time she wanted a glass of water. Since there was barely enough space to turn around in their "closet," they lived out of under-the-bed boxes and stackable drawers.

"It was not a feeling of 'this is my own place,'" she said.

But the host family's two children, 5-year-old Adriana and 8-year-old Alejandro, lightened things up a bit. Agrawal even helped them with their homework.

Even though she was there with six other Hopkins students and more than 120 from across the United States, she was definitely distanced from any sort of home life, or normal college life.

"She had to live on her own, away from her parents," said her roommate Rachel Tehrani, who also lived with Agrawal before she went abroad. "She's more independent now."

But Tehrani insists that she's still the same person, no drastic changes.

Well, maybe a few minor ones. Coming back to Baltimore, and to California, her home state, was a reverse culture shock.

"It's so much more exciting over there," she said. "Especially for Hopkins students, it's much more chill."

Tehrani even mentioned that her roommate would have stayed overseas another semester, if the same people were there. After a few weeks, Agrawal was back into a routine and chilling with friends here in the states. Closet-space and culture shock aside, Agrawal wouldn't trade her semester abroad for anything.

"It's just a really big growing experience," she said.