Starting International Education Week: An Open Letter to Students

Dear Students,

My name is Patty Valencia and I am the Peruvian Program Coordinator at EdOdyssey.

As the International Education Week starts this week, as it typically does in mid-November, I started reflecting on how valuable and resourceful studying abroad truly is. This time, I am not going to put my attention in the academic nor the cultural side, but the personal, friendly one.

As the program coordinator, I have seen many of you come and go. All arrivals have always been different, I can’t argue that. Some of you come exhausted for the long flight. Others come tired but truly enthusiastic and then we have the ones with an impenetrable look and silence treat, quite an enigma.

So yes, arrivals are all different and uniques. But the farewells? Oh, the farewells.

You see, it is not a small decision to live abroad for half of year or an entire year. It is a big decision that implies a lot of smaller choices, especially if you decide to move to Peru, this beautifully different country than your own.

But let me be completely sincere about something here. That great gap between your culture and ours, between your country and mine, and between your possibilities there and here. All of it means your experiences will easily be the biggest effect of your experience in Peru. Or as I see it: personal growth.

I am not saying here that your entire time in my country will be negative, but I am saying it can indeed take you out of your comfort zone.

That’s for sure.

Your experience will present you a range of realities, some harder than others, and it can fiercely force you to reflect. Your time abroad will make you go deep inside yourself as an individual and question all those things you may have taken for granted.

Your experience can, and it most likely will, make you see yourself in a different light and in connection with others. It can really shape a different you. A more conscious, grateful, and humble version of you.

That future you, from my perspective, is the most powerful effect about your experience here. And I promise, it won’t go away.

In my eyes, if you ever ask what do i prefer: if hellos or goodbyes (you haven’t asked but I am going to answer just in case), I prefer the goodbyes. And not because the fact of saying goodbye, but because of the light, love and growth that I see shine in your eyes.

Those looks of you after those last hugs are fuel for me. They the exact thing that makes me love my job the most.

I miss you all so much. Keep shining that beautiful light of yours onto the world. For now, take care of yourselves, kids!

Hasta que nos volvamos a encontrar,

Patty

Want to take your first step toward an in-person experience? Check out our virtual study abroad here!