My Cuesta Essay

There is a huge difference between being knowledgeable about a country and understanding its culture. One year ago, I thought I understood other cultures; I knew that different countries have different cultures, and I thought I can be easily adapted with new place and new culture. But in fact I was wrong. I didn’t quite know what to expect from this country. I had little knowledge about United States other then Transformers was filmed there, that they played American football, and Barack Obama is the present president. Ninety-five hundred miles separates me from home, Traveling half way across the world has truly opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on life. I made a lot of mistakes in my exchange year, and I don’t regret it because I believe either small or big mistakes are the most useful things in life. There is always something to be learned from it and mistakes offer an immediate piece of feedback to anyone who is wise enough to learn from it.
Knowing that the world is full of wonderful things, I courage my self to study abroad. Like Miriam Beard said:” Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." And I’ve learned so much from mistakes by mistakes that I made, which seemed traumatic but gave benefit to my life. I have never traveled anywhere by myself before, so naturally studying abroad for an entire year in United states will be such a unforgettable experience in my life. Emotions build up, and thoughts go through on my head as my time got closer and closer to departure, I was becoming extremely nervous. Questions were running through my mind. Will I going to miss my family? How am I going to adjust to making new friends? Is my new family going to be friendly? As I was preparing for my year abroad,
I was looking forward to a year that would change my mindset, views, maturity and respect for a whole new culture. But first time I got here I thought that this is a big mistake being an exchange student. My first 3 days living in American family was quite not impressive. I never had a pet before, but here everything is different. They had a big Dog that practically I scared of; I was not brave enough to pad him or at least touch him. I was so afraid that the Dog might be attacking or may be biting me. Then I remembered the reason why I was here was because I needed a change. There was no point in feeling sorry for myself because this was my own decision. I decided to really take advantage of my new surroundings and trying to immerse myself in life here to learn as much as I could. There’s nothing that I have to scare of except myself. The one that made me scared of Dog is not the Dog indeed, but I. I made myself scare of something that I never try to get along before. I made myself believed that Dog is an unfriendly creature who doing nothing except bark and eat. But then after a while live in American family, observed how they treat the pet as the member of family, I realize that I was locked into a primitive theory about everything that basically I never try to observe, including the theory that says the Dog is unfriendly and useless creature. I am so glad that I worked so hard to get along with Dog and now I found myself not only as new person who’s not afraid of the creature named Dog but also a person with new perspective of life, not as a person who’s scares of the Dog and even afraid to get along with them.
Looking back the past 6 month, I’ve learned so much and it’s sometimes hard to comprehend. After being accepted to the study abroad program I started to view my current life more critically. In the end, this entire semester of traveling and meeting new people has really given me a global perspective by exposing to me to so many cultures and opinions. Even though in the beginning, it took awhile to feel comfortable in a foreign country. This year offered me many brand new experiences, it was just the change that I was look for. I wanted to see what else is out there. I was excited about the chance to see the world and myself from another perspective. I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons in life and this exchange really helped me grow as an individual. I went as a young, immature teenager and hopefully come home as a maturing & wiser teenager, at least I would know what was out in the world and I could appreciate who I am and the life that I lead back home.