Amherst College Global Education Blog
Countless times, I’ve found myself struggling to explain to my fellow students at Victoria University here in New Zealand exactly how Amherst operates. I start off by talking about how liberal arts schools usually operate – requiring students to take courses in a series of different subjects, from math to languages to science. Then, I add, Amherst is the same
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What does it mean to be home? I’ve been back for two months now, a length of time that has given me the space to reflect on my experiences away, but also allowed for the raw and visceral elements to begin to fade around the edges. Looking back on it, I’d have to say that the differences, not just between
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I came downstairs to have breakfast and was offered a glass of champagne. I accepted it. For a moment, I stopped and thought about why I’d said yes. I’d never said yes before. And then I decided I didn’t need to know exactly why I had said yes. So, I had a glass of champagne for breakfast. Comfort had snuck
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Written by Lily Fang ’18 Before I left, I wrote myself a letter. It was my final night on-campus before my junior year abroad. After hauling my remaining clutter to storage, I plopped down at my desk in my now-bare room. It felt unsettlingly empty. I was sad that day. A full year abroad was my longtime dream, but it
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When I originally imagined studying abroad, I didn’t think my daily life would be that different from what I experienced at Amherst. After all, I was already used to living on my own, away from my parents, for months at a time, and the changes in my living situation – that I would live off campus and need to cook
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About once a month, one of my housemates greets me in the morning by asking me if I know what day it is. Every time I immediately become concerned that I’m late to pay rent. But that’s never the case. Still, she likes to wait a few seconds while my face contorts with mild panic. Eventually she tells me, “there
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It’s late, encroaching on 1 am, and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of an Uber, heading back to school from the airport. Perfectly manicured hedges stream past and the streetlamps lining the highway put out a bright, reassuring glow. In my last post, I wrote that Singapore didn’t feel like home, that maybe it would never feel like home.
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If you’ve gone on study abroad to a different country, you’re probably familiar with international orientation – the multi-day event which briefs you on everything from academics to safety to which supermarkets are the cheapest. And, of course, there’s always a small language component, detailing common words and phrases that you might not be familiar with already. On the second
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Kukka and I became friends the summer before my senior year of high school. We spent a few years together studying violin at the Manhattan School of Music, but eventually both of us left MSM. Kukka went to Finland and I went to community college. Four years have passed since we left MSM and now I am also in Finland.
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I have been here for four weeks now, just under a month. Long enough to begin to feel comfortable, to touch the cultural nuances of this country, but not long enough for the raw newness to have faded yet. I am still surprised by the manicured hedges on the side of the highway, the silhouettes of shipping cranes over the
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