My interview with a recent college graduate

Today I had arranged a meeting with a woman who works at my step-mother’s school. My sister and I met with Kelsey Patterson. Kelsey is a biochemistry major graduate from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She talked with us about college in general and her experiences. I asked her about studying abroad because she mentioned having friends who had done that while at UTK. She explained that UTK has a very welcoming and informative international studies office. She said that there were emails about studying abroad meetings sent out almost every other day. So it sounds like UTK is a very eager school to get people out there studying overseas.

Lately I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not I’d still like to study abroad as I research colleges. I feel like it’s something I’m interested in but I’m not sure I’d want to go study overseas my freshmen year in college. I would consider it my sophomore year maybe. It all would depend on how my classes transferred and what courses were offered.

Kelsey pointed me to UTK’s website about their studying abroad programs. The schools has a lot of different types of programs that students can participate in. UTK offers direct enrollment programs, UTK faculty led programs, and exchange programs. I personally would be most interested in a UTK led program more so than a direct enrollment only because I could stay enrolled into the university in America. UTK isn’t the only school that offers these opportunities. Many other of the larger universities in Tennessee have large abroad programs for their students to partake in.

Recently in my research I’ve been finding that I am kind of becoming less interested in abroad study or more undecided about it. I am still interested in travel and learning about other cultures and places and I am still keeping studying abroad an option, it is just not a top priority. I feel this way mainly because of the way classes transfer over and the fact that you have to wait until the next semester starts in the country you’re studying in which isn’t always the same time as the school you attend in the U.S. I assume or from what I’ve read and heard, you have to put all your activities at your home university on hold while you are out studying abroad. This makes it a little difficult too. I think if I chose to go my second year of college before I started into a major or harder classes then I would like to go study abroad for at least a single semester. I still desire to go abroad but I feel like I’m more aware of what it takes and some of the more difficult things about it now from my research.

Sources:

"International Students and Scholars Services." The Programs Abroad Office. University of Tennessee, Web. 30 Apr. 2015. <https://studyabroad.utk.edu/>.

Patterson, Kelsey. Personal interview. 30 Apr. 2015.