{"id":405,"date":"2015-11-17T14:40:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T19:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colby.edu\/ocsblog\/?p=405"},"modified":"2016-03-15T10:00:16","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T14:00:16","slug":"why-should-you-study-abroad-by-elena-kirillova-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ocsblog\/2015\/11\/17\/why-should-you-study-abroad-by-elena-kirillova-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Why should you study abroad? by Elena Kirillova \u201814"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"12233444_10207983187166285_612706512_n<\/a><\/p>\n

Elena Kirillova \u201814<\/strong>
\nEast Asian Studies major \/ Computer Science minor<\/strong>
\nAssociated Kyoto Program<\/a>, Japan<\/strong>
\nAcademic Year 2012-2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why I went abroad, I realized that I myself never had a concrete reason or a proper goal for doing it. My reasoning has always gone something like this, why not just go and see what happens?<\/p>\n

\"United<\/a>
United World College (UWC) of the Atlantic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why did I study abroad? In fact, I studied abroad 3 times.The first time I left Russia, my home country, was to go to a school in Wales, UK, called United World College (UWC) of the Atlantic<\/a>. That year my Russian high school received a scholarship to offer to two graduating students the opportunity to go to Wales, and I happened to be one of the lucky two. At the time of the offer I was looking to apply to a university in Saint Petersburg and major in optical engineering. If I was to go to Wales I would be doing another two years of high school but this time in English. Even though I had studied English for 7 years in school I did not speak it. But UWC of Atlantic had a castle on its grounds and was right on the ocean so I thought, why not? And so went my time in Wales.<\/p>\n

Having endured two years of linguistic isolation and having finally acquired a decent speaking ability in English, I wondered – should I go back home or should I consider applying to a university elsewhere? By this point I wanted nothing to do with engineering\/physics and was thinking of majoring in Computer Science and Japanese. I weighed my options. Going to a college back home meant spending my last year in Wales preparing for the Russian Unified State Exam, since my results from two years ago would soon expire. Meanwhile, my school in Wales hosted the SAT right in that castle I mentioned earlier, the American application process seemed many times easier, and if I went to a Liberal Arts college I could major both in Computer Science and Japanese. There is nothing like liberal arts in Russian universities.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s how I ended up at Colby. I did a google search “Colby sushi” and read something about sushi in the dining hall and thought, this is\u00a0it<\/em>. Little did I know, what a rare occasion sushi is on Colby\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n

Now, finally to my study abroad while at Colby – I was double majoring in Computer Science and East Asian studies as planned, and once I found out about the year-long Associated Kyoto Program<\/a> in Kyoto, Japan based at Doshisha University<\/a> with which Colby is affiliated, I jumped at the opportunity because when else in your life might you have a chance to go somewhere like Japan for a whole year while still not being an adult with all that adulthood entails? Also, I had taken so many Computer Science classes in my first two years at Colby that I wanted to get away from my laptop.<\/p>\n