By MARIA PAPPAS
STAFF WRITER
Students, such as Florakis and Joy, tend to have mixed feelings about their study abroad experiences coming to an end. (Photo by Tessa Bloechl /THE RAM)
As the new semester begins, those students who studied abroad in the fall 2013 semester have returned to Fordham University. While they recollect on their experience abroad, they are also attempting to readjust to life at Fordham.
Maggie Joy, FCRH ’15, a music and English double major who studied at Loyola Chicago’s John Felice Center in Rome, was excited to see the ways in which New York and Fordham had changed in her absence. She is excited to be able to eat at Panda Express and Così, although she misses the incomparable pasta and cappuccinos that Italy had to offer. Joy says that she is also enjoying unlimited access to Netflix and iced coffee, both of which were sparse in Rome.
Having moved into an off-campus apartment, Joy said, “I knew I wanted to be off-campus, so last year I tried to look around and find people who were going abroad, and fortunately I found three other girls who were going abroad in the spring, so they helped me out by finding other people to sublet.”
Dimitri Florakis, FCRH ’15, who studied in Melbourne, Australia, said, “It’s strange coming back from a fall semester abroad now that some of my friends have gone abroad for the spring semester.”
Full class schedules made it easier for Joy and Florakis to readjust, although both have noticed major differences between the way that schools operate in their respective locations abroad. Florakis says, “I’m not used to syllabus week anymore because we jumped straight into classes abroad, and the classes were about 300 people, so now I have to get back into the flow of participating and being called on.”
For Joy, the classes at Fordham are not as interactive as the classes that she took while abroad. She said, “One of my writing classes was held around Rome, so now I’m half-expecting to go roam around New York for classes.”
While readjusting to life at Fordham, both Florakis and Joy have experienced “pop culture shock,” hearing new artists such as Lorde for the first time and seeing the green cabs that have popped up around New York.
Both students now find themselves plagued with wanderlust. Joy explained that she has already planned a trip to St. Louis to see her friend in the summer, but that nothing compares to traveling in Europe. Joy said, “It’s so much easier to travel in Europe than the US because it’s a lot more inexpensive in Europe and there are so many different ways to travel.”
Florakis said, “I feel like I should have done a full year abroad. Four months was too little time because for the first two months I was adjusting and by the last two months I had my group of friends and I knew where everything was. I felt like I was a native, and then I had to come back.”
However, he also expresses interest in returning to Melbourne. “I’m thinking of going back after I finish undergrad, either for grad school or most likely for work,” he said.
Joy would like to return to Dublin, one of the places she visited while abroad. “I want to go to grad school in Dublin because I had 36 hours in Dublin and it was not enough,” she said.
In terms of what he missed about Fordham, Florakis said, “What I missed most was the people.”
Joy echoed this sentiment, explaining that seeing her friends is preferable to being able to speak to them only over text, as she was doing last semester. She said, “I really missed Fordham, especially because I am in the band and did not like missing the football season. Hearing about stuff that was going on but not being a part of it made me really excited to come back and be able to be a part of everything once again.”
For students coming back from overseas, Fordham is still their school but the world is now their campus.
