A Few Final Thoughts

On the Road AgainI still feel very far away from the end even though I know it’s right around the corner. I hope when I get there my feelings for Buenos Aires will be as positive as the final thoughts I’ve been reading from other people’s blogs, but I’m not sure if they will be. My feelings about Buenos Aires, Argentina, studying abroad in general, swing daily. It has been an experience of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, and it’s left me with a general feeling of uncertainty. I have a lot of people wrote about how much they have grown, and maybe I’m just too in the thick of it right now to notice, but I’m not sure if I’ve grown at all in any real, or noticeable way. I am honestly racking my brain right now to try and think of some concrete change I can write about… nothing is coming and it actually makes me sad. Now I’m wondering if I kept myself from changing somehow? Or if I did not come in with enough of an open mind? I’m worried about how I will look back on this experience, if in the end it’s just been an expensive and privileged waste of time.

I am grateful for are the friends I have made in the program, including one who will be my roommate in New York. I am excited to see how the connections I have made in Buenos Aires will change my experience of New York when I get back.

Now for what NYU can do to make NYU in Buenos Aires a better program; they can offer better classes! I have not met a single person in the program who does not have at least one class they absolutely hate, and many people have two or three. It is incredibly rare to hear someone raving about a class. It is even rare to hear someone honestly express that they will take much, if anything away from their classes here. I am perfectly satisfied with two of my classes, reasonably satisfied with one, and then there is my fourth class, the class that makes me miserable for an hour and a half every Monday and Wednesday. If you know someone who is studying abroad in Buenos Aires next semester, I urge you to direct them to someone who has done it already if only for a list of classes to avoid at all costs. It is hard to take, even a single class that feels like such an utter waste of time, when you are living in a city you may never have the chance to visit again.

Now that I have written the most negative post I could have created, I would like to say that I absolutely do not regret the experience, how could I? And writing “final thoughts” when you are still a month away from having them really means they are just present thoughts, and like I said they change everyday, and happen to be on a down swing right now. Understandably, I’ve been writing blogs posts all day long. Well, goodbye blog! You’ve caused me stress, pushed me to think, taught me to write really fast, and I’ll miss you!