I'm 38y old and I just got back from my first study abroad program
Studying abroad was one of my dreams when I was a teenager - and it feels so good to make old dreams become reality. Here are some reflections about how life doesn't happen in a linear way.
I grew up in a tiny town in Southern Brazil. Back in those days, my entertainment was watching cartoons on TV, playing with my Barbie, and hanging out with my friends outside. When I grew a little more, I started to read teenage magazines, and those were my lenses to what was happening in the world: celebrities, lifestyle, music, beauty, and fashion. From what I recall, it was through those magazines that I learned - or learned more - about Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and Hanson.
It was about that same time that I also became interested in learning English - I still remember how excited I was when I started to have English classes at school. I've attended a public and humble public school my entire life, and English was only part of the middle school curriculum. Not satisfied, I would translate my favorite songs - word by word - using a mini-dictionary while locked in my room. I spent so many afternoons discovering what those lyrics from Bon Jovi and Hanson meant in Portuguese… My mom also got me textbooks from grandma's house, which my uncles previously used. The books were smelly, and some of the exercises were already completed, but I didn't care. I was so excited to learn more.
Since I discovered this love for the English language early on - and also figured that dedicating myself to my studies, in general, would be good for my future - I also got fascinated with the idea of studying English abroad. That was a topic that my favorite magazine would always cover - and it was fascinating to learn the stories of girls my age who had spent some months in Canada, the USA, or the UK learning English, living with a host family, and experiencing another culture.
And that was so out of my league. I didn't grow up poor, but studying abroad was something that my parents couldn't afford. It wasn't a possibility that I could even consider. While some of the other kids in my town would go to private schools, and attended swimming lessons, and private English schools, we had the basics and some extras covered - which, I know, was already a privilege, especially in a country like Brazil. And I say this with no resentment through my parents.
Knowing that studying abroad was just a dream, I kept living my life, attended college, graduated, and started to formally study English. When I got a job and was living on my own and paying my bills, I finally got back to the idea. I did some research about spending a month studying English in Ireland back in 2010 with my sister, but it was so expensive that although I could afford it, I just didn't see any advantage in spending a high amount of money to study for only a month. Today, I think differently, but most of the time, although for those watching, it seems the opposite, life usually does not happen in a linear way.
Cut to 2025 - I'm 38 years old and I just got back from my first study abroad program. And it was not to study English. I spent a month in Madrid, Spain, attending an intensive Spanish course. Like I said, life doesn't happen in a linear way. I moved to NYC in 2014, attended some classes at the New York Public Library and the everyday life in the city was my "school" - which, honestly, was not bad at all.
When I had already been living in NYC for a couple of years, I realized it was time to get back to Spanish classes. I really love the language, and it was my personal goal to become fluent. So, I’ve been taking private online classes for over 6 years – with a brief hiatus in between. And at some point, I started to have the desire to immerse myself in the language. I felt I needed a boost; I needed to put my Spanish into deep practice and learn more, of course, cause speaking another language is a learning process.
Now I finally had the financial means, but I was always like: "One day…". Life goes on, and other responsibilities get in the way, and we end up postponing plans like that. Cut to April 2024, when I saw a video about LAE Madrid on Instagram and got really interested in their intensive courses. After months of planning, it happened. I went to Madrid, attended classes for 4 weeks, and got back to NYC not only more confident with my Spanish but definitely more mature and super proud of myself.
When I was on the plane, ready to get back to NYC, texting with my sister, she told me something that really resonated: "It happened. Have you realized that? So much time planning this. And now you are going back home". That was so meaningful. And so true. Yeah, she was talking about the whole time I spent in 2024 planning for these 4 weeks in Madrid. However, Laura, sitting on that plane, was not happy about having achieved her recent goal of immersing herself in the Spanish language. She was also happy for conquering something her teenage version had dreamed so much about it. Yeah, it was not a study abroad program to study English - cause life took a wild detour when it brought her directly to New York City to start a new chapter - but it was a study abroad program. And it was so rewarding. I think there's something very significant in conquering an old dream.
Sure, the four weeks of immersing myself in Spanish were great. It was amazing to realize that all the efforts I've been putting in over the last years to study the language paid off when I was placed at a high level and was able to do so many things around Madrid. But "studying abroad" is not only about "studying". I mean, I didn't make it, only about that. It was about getting to know people from other places in the world and their stories - like a teacher from Cuba who left the country to pursue a better life, a lawyer from the USA who got tired of the American lifestyle, or a journalist from South Africa that moved to Israel and then moved to Spain to run away from the war. It was about learning more about other people's stories and feeling grateful for the life you have. It made me realize even more how this "living abroad" theme fascinates me and how people pursue new lives for different reasons.
It was also about the self-reflection I was able to do in so many moments, planning new things, asking myself the right questions, and shutting the noise. It was about seeing another culture up close and getting to experience another routine - at least for a month. And realize that as scary as it can sound, we can adapt to a new life.
A really important takeaway is remembering it's never too late to chase our dreams or try new things. I don't think that studying abroad or moving to another country are things only meant for teenagers or young adults. I will take a step further and say that perhaps, sometimes, it's even better to do things like that when we are not so young - most of the time, we don't have the maturity to deeply appreciate these experiences and take advantage of them as they deserve.
And I guess the biggest takeaway was realizing that exposing yourself to new experiences here and there is always valid. From start running to learning a new language, from exploring a park near home to going to the movies by yourself, from trying a new recipe to change your hair color: I guess it never hurts to put ourselves out there and try new things, small or big. There's no harm in trying new things - even if it's just to discover something is not for you. “It's better to regret what you have done than what you haven't.”
I'm glad that, in some way, I'm still that little curious kid who dreamed so much about having an opportunity to see the world out there.