Gearing Up to Go

Hi everyone, and welcome to Adventures in the Key of E (Thanks again to my sister, Sarah, for the awesome name idea)! The name stems from my love of music, my name, and of course, because I'm studying abroad in Edinburgh for the Spring semester.

Getting here definitely hasn't been the easiest of roads. I started asking advisors about this in March, chose a location from an extremely extensive list of places, and applied by the end of April. Then, I waited. And I waited some more. And... I waited some more. In the meantime, I was of course taking classes, on the leadership team for marching band here at Appalachian, elected President of my fraternity, working part-time at the gym, and of course, traveling all over the country with Garrett. On October 15, 2018, I finally was accepted to my program (notice I said "program," not university). After waiting about 2 more weeks I received my acceptance letter from Edinburgh Napier University via email on October 30.

I didn't realize how much work went into studying abroad, but just the tasks leading up to my departure have taught me an incredible amount:

1. I've learned persistence is key when you need something done. I'm pretty sure my academic advisor and department chair have heard from me more than my own family this semester.

2. Patience really is a virtue. Sometimes people won't have the answers you need when you feel like you need them. Don't worry, you'll get them before you take off.

3. Sometimes running around to get 3 people to sign off on the same sheet of paper to confirm you can take classes from another university seems like it will take forever, but it can be done in one day. (Again, persistence).

4. Do as much research as possible before buying a flight. Luckily I still got one of the best deals, but I almost paid double because Google didn't show me all of my options.

5. Life happens. I haven't found a sublessor yet and may have to eat 6 months of rent while abroad. I don't know what classes I will have until I arrive, meaning I don't know if I graduate in June or December 2019. What I do know is that I am prepared to tackle more obstacles than I ever thought I'd be able to at 20 years old, and I'm getting more and more excited the closer my departure date gets!