The Importance Of College Life

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During a time-span of four years, from 2012-2015, I moved four times. First, I left my home, at seventeen-years-old, to live with a host family in Zaragoza, Spain. I often wrote in my diary, before that September, of how deeply I yearned to meet the rest of the world. With every shirt that I tucked into my suitcase, I prayed that the world would greet me with open arms and that this would be the greatest year of my life. In many ways, it was, but that year was also equally painful. I came to learn that folding myself into a new culture would be more difficult than I had initially imagined. Late at night, as I laid awake in the bed of my host family’s apartment, I swore I could hear the seams of my old life popping and coming undone. I felt afraid, too, of the woman I was to become. From my perch across the sea, I…show more content…
Alone and without a word of Chinese under my belt, I made the trip from Spain to Shanghai to begin my college career at NYU. During the first two weeks of orientation, I grew thin as I sat at dinners unable to use chopsticks and equally unwilling to ask for a fork. The world and her infinite, cultural permutations would greet me again as she had in Spain. I was sure of it, but I could not give up and retreat to comfort. Though other students ultimately left only a few weeks into the semester; I would not turn back until I grew able to understand my new world. With each new difficulty that I encountered during my two years in Shanghai, I reminded myself of what I believed when I committed to this journey. If I valued courage, then I had to do that which scared me. I learned, moving to China, that success is a journey comprised of many small steps and the decision to try. I approached my next two moves, to Florence and New York, with this in mind. This truth continues to humble, and inspire me, every
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