Our Stories
Hannah's Story
Hannah talks about the risk that she took in studying abroad in Amsterdam and her experience amercing herself in the culture by herself and how it impacted her future career path.
Would you tell me about a time that you took a risk?
A time I took a risk was going abroad last semester, my fall semester, senior year to Amsterdam. And I know it's like cliche like, oh yeah, you like go abroad, whatever. But I really wanted my abroad experience to be as natural as possible. I didn't want to go to an American school in a foreign country. I didn't want to go to a school where I knew I was going to be surrounded by other American college students. I really wanted to just like go abroad and experience like culture shock like head on. So I decided to go to fret university type in Amsterdam, like by myself. I didn't know, I didn't know it was. So when I got there, I literally like booked my flight a week before and just got on a plane and shipped myself off to Amsterdam knowing no one. And yeah, that was the time I really did take a risk. And what did you learn about yourself? Did learn that taking a risk is not only can I do it and I'm very capable um but like it just gave me that confidence that I can take risks in the future. And that taking risks actually is a good thing. And I have so many positive outcomes from doing it and I really have made some of my best friends um throughout the world just doing that experience. And so post grad, I'm a senior. So I'm graduating next at the end of the semester in like a month, which is terrifying. But I, I decided to take a job in South Korea, um, teaching English, which I never, I never would have done, had I not taken that risk to go to Amsterdam because it's like a similar situation where I don't know a soul there. I don't know a soul in Seoul. Um, but I, I don't know anyone there. I'm just going by myself to a country that's thousands of miles away, um, with a 13 hour time zone, like, and I'm ok with it and I'm excited for it and I'm, I'm not crying because of stress this time, but I'm really excited.