Study abroad is funny because the registrar and abroad office make such a big deal out of academic rigor (the GPA requirement is something like a 3.0), but once you get over ‘there’, it’s mostly great food, beautiful sights and traveler’s diarrhea. The traditional academic system of ‘take notes, work on short term projects, put off long term project OH GOD IT’S DUE TOMORROW’ doesn’t really apply, and nor should it: you’re in a crazy part of the world, and you don’t know if or when you will return there, so you had better make the most of it. Go to shitty Americanized nightclubs Eat fried rat; speak the native language while drinking the native rotgut; marvel at the gorgeous public spaces, free health care and other wonders of ‘socialism’; ask foreign kids your age what they think about the world. If you really like what you’re learning and doing, you won’t mind so much the peeing out of your butt and fever dreams.

Also, try keeping a blog! We’re in October here and YouTube videos of cute cats aren’t enough to hold your procrastination for long. You need something with more of a narrative structure that you can get sucked into for hours at a time. That’s a blog.

Running right now:
Z Steinhauer going green in Denmark
Alex Becker in the entire world
Alum Liz Roche in exotic Chicago, and it’s more fucked than you’d expect
Alum Caz VanDevere, bald in India 

Preserved in cyberspace:
Alum Mandy Duval travels with IHP to Tanzania, India, New Zealand and Mexico
Anthony Bourdain (he wishes) in Vietnam

Abroad with a blog? Leave it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list. Know a friend with a good blog? Bug them to share. So anyway, let’s all just keep pretending that study abroad is as academically difficult as the registrar makes it out to be, and maybe we can keep getting credit for it.