An Opportunity of a Lifetime by Nicole

An Opportunity of a Lifetime by Nicole - March 2016 Scholarship Essay

Imagine yourself sitting in a classroom. Rocking back in forth in your old, squeaky, wobbly chair while your 70-year-old stoic professor, talks slower than a turtle inching towards an ocean on a hot mid-summer's day. Explaining past progressive and imperfect tenses in French. Wasn't there only one past tense in French? you think to yourself. You suddenly become extremely confused, doubting all your knowledge. You decide to ask the person next to you but he's catching up on last night’s sleep. You ask the person behind you but their face turns into a deer in headlights. You decide you will just look up the answer as soon as you get home. Continuing to listen to the lecture, you start to fade away. What's the point in trying? you ask yourself. After the hour long class, you go back to your dorm and take a nap. When you wake up you realize you forgot to look up the answer to your question. You find out your test is today! You, along with many others in your class, fail the test. The few students that do pass, forget the information shortly after. Years go by and you and your family decide to go to France for a family reunion. After arriving at your hotel, you decide to go for a walk with your young daughter. Suddenly she becomes so thirsty she refuses to walk any farther. You find a small corner shop and decide to go inside. All the drinks are behind the counter and you need to ask the store clerk for some water for your child. As you open your mouth to speak, you realize you forgot something. You forgot how to say water in French. All those years of suffering through classes and classes of boring lectures, and you can't even remember one simple word when your daughter is counting on you. If only you studied abroad in college, this would not happen. Studying abroad helps you put a target language to use, introduce you that nation's culture, and increase your knowledge by practicing speaking with natives.
Studying abroad means you go to a foreign country such as France or Spain to practice a language that you have begun to learn. It is an excellent opportunity to increase your speaking ability in the language by being able to talk to natives. At first it might seem impossible and you may think it is not any better than learning the language in your U.S. school, but as you find yourself surrounded by natives 24/7, you see opportunities. Opportunities to learn that aren’t available in a traditional school system. Would you rather sit in a boring classroom listening to your teacher lecture on and on, or would you rather eat a chocolate crepe on a balcony with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Even online stimulations of conversations and classes where you can talk only in the target language aren’t very useful. After that one-hour class you’re back to speaking English. In a foreign country however, you cannot escape the language. Wherever you go it follows you and you are forced to speak it.
Being in high school, I have never had the opportunity to formally study abroad, but 2 years ago I did have the chance to travel to Poland alone. My parents moved from Poland to America five years before I was born. Speaking mostly English at home, I never quite perfected my Polish. My grammar was worse than a 2nd grader, and my vocabulary wasn’t much better. My family usually goes to Poland every 2 years so the last time we went I asked my mother if I could stay a month longer. Much to my surprise, she agreed! I spent the first 2 weeks alone at my mother’s side of the family. As soon as my parents left I felt lost and alone. They were the only other people in my family that knew how to speak English and now I had no one to talk to. Or did I? The morning after they left, I went downstairs and saw my aunt, she started speaking in Polish to me and I had a hard time understanding her, worrying about being judged for saying something wrong or making a stupid mistake, but she knew few words in English and we somehow managed to communicate. As days went by, I started talking more and more in Polish. Picking up on words I never knew and using parts of English, Polish, and hand motions to communicate with my cousins. The once impossible now seemed possible and when I went to my dad’s side of my family, I felt more confident and communicated more clearly without worrying about making mistakes. When I returned home my parents were delighted to learn that my speaking had improved and that I could now speak to them in Polish.
Overall, studying abroad is an amazing experience and opportunity to learn not only a new language, but the culture and traditions that go along with it. Being alone in Poland, I learned a lot about myself. I overcame my fear of messing up and saying something stupid and instead decided to learn from my mistakes. Currently studying Spanish, I look forward to having the opportunity to study abroad in college and I think others interested in learning another language should be required to as well.