Thousands of college students study abroad each year, but one Bobcat is going to the extreme by spending three consecutive semesters taking classes in foreign countries.
Chloe Scarborough, anthropology junior, spent her first semester abroad in Chiang Mai, Thailand, followed by time in Granada, Spain. She is currently enrolled in classes in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
Her love for traveling began after a mission trip to El Salvador, Scarborough said.
“I knew it was my calling to travel and help people,” she said. “(To) learn (about) other cultures and speak different languages. It was all just so eye-opening, and I never really wanted to stop.”
Fear and nerves came with the preparation of her first study abroad trip to Thailand, Scarborough said. After growing up in Austin and starting college close to home at Texas State, she had never gone longer than two weeks without seeing her parents. She was scared, but knew going abroad would be a good experience for her.
“I knew it was going to be hard,” Scarborough said. “And the main reason why I pushed myself, especially (to go to) Thailand, was that I just wanted to see what kind of person I could become.”
Scarborough said she gained a new sense of self.
“Along with all of the difficulties, I had the most incredible experiences of my life,” Scarborough said. “I had moments where I felt freer than I had ever felt, where I felt independent. That confidence in myself and everything, I just felt accomplished. It’s addicting.”
Ciara Titus, a friend of Scarborough’s who also studied abroad in Spain, said homesickness can become difficult to manage when studying abroad.
“I’ve been telling people it has been one of the best experiences of my life, but not because every moment was just amazing and great,” Titus said. “There were definitely some hard times, but Chloe was amazing on helping me get through that, since she had been through it already.”
Scarborough said living in a foreign country can be difficult at first, but the experience allowed her to become more vulnerable and fully understand the culture.
“I realize when you put yourself out there and find yourself in situations that are out of regular life, you get out of that routine, and you get out of the sense of safety,” she said. “In the United States, it’s easy to stay quiet, but studying abroad, you’re forced to ask for help.”
Scarborough had an experience that transcended cultural barriers when meeting a local in Thailand, she said.
“I started pointing at his tattoos, and he told me how he went to prison to fight for his rights,” Scarborough said. “Like a story you’d hear here in America. Then I showed him my tattoos. We played this game with toothpicks and language didn’t matter, culture didn’t matter, it was just two human beings connecting.”
Titus said another perk of studying abroad is the friendships you gain.
“There are some girls I met my first month there, and we may not talk as much, but I think we mutually know that we had some of the best moments of our lives together,” Titus said. “I’ll always appreciate those girls, even if we’re not talking anymore. Just laughing together, and being wild and making mistakes and fixing those mistakes.”
Besides credit hours and education, students who study abroad gain skills that will be applicable for the rest of their lives, said Ila Mar, Study Abroad representative.
“Studying abroad also allows you to learn a lot of skills that you really didn’t think about before going abroad,” Mar said. “It allows you to kind of think outside the box. You really learn how to think on your feet and handle any situation that comes your way.”
Scarborough herself was placed in one unimaginable situation. She was in Paris the night of Nov. 13, 2015, when over 100 people were killed by coordinated terrorist attacks throughout the city. Her hostel was only 10 minutes away from the Bataclan, the Parisian theatre where 89 people died.
“I felt more part of the world than I had ever felt before,” Scarborough said. “Because anytime you hear something happens in the world, you just think ‘Damn, that sucks,’ but being there in it, you just realize there is no separation (between people).”
Scarborough stayed in her hostel that night instead of going sightseeing, and the remainder of her stay in France’s capital city wasn’t the typical Parisian weekend, she said.
“Everything was closed,” Scarborough said. “We walked out in the morning and the streets were just empty, and (we saw) security with giant guns. It was just creepy. You could just feel (the tension) in the air. Just walking around was exceptionally dismal.”
Scarborough said she would recommend studying abroad to any Bobcat.
“I feel like there are a lot of clichés,” Scarborough said. “Like yeah, I became so much more confident and so much more independent. All of those clichés are definitely true, but I’ve learned things about myself that I don’t know I could have learned any other way. I would do it again, and I’d tell anyone to just do it.”