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When I told a lot of people I was working with that I was planning on switching, of
going into another program and studying for another 5 years, everyone thought I was crazy
and they thought I was throwing something so good that I had away. So just kind of put
all of that aside to go to do something completely different after all that work, seemed just
insane to people, and it was hard for me too. But, I think when I went away, I was surrounded
by people from such an international community and so many people who were my age, had done
a whole degree of school, and accomplished a lot of things, very smart, very well-rounded,
and they had other plans for their immediate future too. They were planning to travel,
planning to work in different places, to move onto different school endeavors as well. And
so to have that around me, to have people who were also doing different things and not
just settling down for a job immediately because the opportunity are there, was really nice.
It sort of took away some of the pressure that I was feeling here at home. So that sort
of maybe validated in a way that I had made the right decision. It made me a lot more
confident. I was always pretty independent, but I guess I was able to rely more on independence
and sort of have confidence in my abilities and my instincts and probably appreciate different
cultures a little bit more. I mean there's people there, there's six hundred exchange
students that come in per term, and they are from all over the world, so it's really neat
to be able to interact with so many people and to make friends from everywhere. And I
guess something that's pretty important is, I think it taught me to take advantage of
unique opportunities that are presented to me that I may not usually. When I applied
for exchange, I thought I might as well do it, it would be a lot of fun, but I didn't
realize that it would be the best experience of my life. So, now I'm sort of, it's hard
to turn down things that could be wonderful and that could really change you and benefit
you.