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STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM - STUDENT EXPERIENCES
Nicholas Brokowski How did you select your Study Abroad location? I selected Kraków , Poland for a number of reasons. I come from a very strong, traditional Polish - American family, and thus it has always been a dream of mine to speak Polish, but not just speak "some coffee with cream, please" but to know the language, the country, the people, and the culture. No book-based course work can accomplish that in the manner that a year of life in Poland has done for me. I've been staring my dream in the face for almost two years now, having moved back here after returning home to work for a few months. I also selected Kraków because of its reputation as the cultural capital of Poland , a reputation that has been proven true time and again throughout my stay here. Finally, I wanted to go where no one else goes. I wanted to land in a country and find myself totally lost, not knowing the language or the whys and hows. I've been the insider all my life, and for once I wanted to be the one who doesn't know a soul and who has no one around to help him. I knew I wouldn't find that in Western Europe , so here I am. Why did you want to study abroad? My desire to study abroad arose from the fact that I wanted to make my time at college unique and truly memorable. Our system of education far too often depends on the almighty precedence and authority of paper. Do you have a diploma? Yes. Then you've learned something. Spend four years at a school, check off your requirements towards graduation and we'll stamp you as certified on your way out the door. I wanted to avoid that cooking cutter education - I wanted to expose myself not only to readable and touchable knowledge, but as well to new life and a completely new reality. In essence, I wanted to make my time in school a living learning experience, and I found no better way to accomplish that than to leave everything I knew behind and seek out that which is new and foreign. What was the highlight of the experience? It's too difficult for me to select one occurrence and declare that that was the best it got for me. I'll simply remember the entire experience as one of the greatest, most valuable times of my life. I met and was an active part of an entirely new world and culture for quite a long time. That's not something I'll lose any time soon. Here I met some of the best friends I'll ever have, I met here people I'll be in touch with the rest of my life. If I had to distill it down, I guess I could say that the highlight of my time here was when I came to the realization that I truly do live here. Live in the sense that this is my place in the world, that my life is here, that I know this place, I know its magical faces as well as its ugliness, in short, I know it like I know my home. What surprised you the most? Sure I can count many occasions when cultural differences struck me as odd, even to the point of anger. The Polish love for merciless, unending bureaucracy which extends sometimes to the point of laughable senselessness and how Poles accept this senselessness as a normal fact of life. The constant lack of change in cash registers. How one turn off the paved road in Central and Eastern Europe often means a change from BMWs to horse and buggy and waiting for chickens to peck their way across the road in order to drive on. But for me what surprised me most is how much I was taken in by life in Kraków, by how much I became a part of Kraków and by how much Kraków became a part of me. After some time here, when I spoke Polish well enough to start having conversations and truly feel comfortable, I realized that my life is here, its daily routine and those bigger dreams we carry along. After a certain point I began to see Kraków as a second home, in certain ways just as dear to me as my true blood home back in Wilkes-Barre. How has this experience affected your major and future career? Any effect on my future careers is yet to be seen, although I'm holding out hope that it will make much more possible for me in the future. I am, however, certain of the fact that the life I've led here has more than prepared me for any future challenges I might face in my career as well as in my life's daily routine. I've proven to myself my ability to overcome any sort of difficulty, to adapt to a completely foreign and new country and culture, and to happily thrive as a person in adverse circumstances. With this knowledge, experience, and ability, what I may encounter down the road will taste more like opportunity rather than like daunting adversity. I think now where ever life kicks me, I'll always land on my feet. What would you tell students considering studying abroad? Find a way to study abroad. Find a way to do it, and go. Not just for your career, but for yourself. If you're open to knowing the world a little bit better, if you have a sense of curiosity, go somewhere where life is different. Make the experience worthwhile, don't squander the opportunity to learn a second language, to experience a new culture, and to become a citizen of the larger world. |
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