About My Year Abroad

You may be asking yourself, why is Aaron studying in New Zealand? Or better yet, why is he taking a semester in both New Zealand and Hong Kong? Or, more practically, how can he afford a year abroad and two months of traveling? Read on for some possible answers.

And thats where I’m heading! Head to this link (or click the map) to see where, exactly, I am going (this will be updated as I go about my travels).

Now, to answer your various questions… I chose to study a full year abroad because I could. Because I wasn’t going to study where a foreign language was essential, I basically gave upon the idea of needing a year to assimilate/absorb the local culture. Essentially, the goal of my year abroad was to see as much of the world as possible while still earning credit. Europe was off the table, simply because everyone goes to Europe, and I’m not too worried that I won’t be able to criss-cross Europe at some point in my life. New Zealand, on the other hand, is totally out of the way (see my post on the upside-down map), and I might never make it to land with such wondrous natural beauty. Another important factor was cost – the New Zealand program is several thousand dollars cheaper than a semester at home. This price savings allows me to do all this traveling within my normal school budget. As for Hong Kong, it offers me an opportunity to encounter a truly foreign culture without needing to study another language. Now as to why I didn’t spend a full year in Hong Kong, it seemed that I would have had to go it alone for my fall semester, without the guidance of a study-abroad program. I need the safety net of having a program to structure my introduction to the local environment (Arcadia for NZ and Tufts for HK).

Another interesting byproduct of my choice to study in NZ was its Southern hemisphere academic calendar. While this robbed me of most of my sophomore-junior summer, I will be free from academic pressure from November 5th until early January! Hence, my whirlwind tour of the rest of NZ, Syndey, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore and maybe more.