On Facebook, a new add-on allows users to map countries around the world they've visited. If I were to add it, my shaded countries would be: Greece, Spain, Norway, Belgium, Russia, Morocco, Italy, Egypt, and Turkey. And America.
What I've loved about graduate school has been all the international friends I've met; I've learnt more more by talking to foreign friends than probably I could by reading a book. It's a much richer form of knowledge acquisition and makes for a more enjoyable experience, perhaps because a human element is necessarily added because the narration is most often through personal experience.
Secondly, it gives me an excuse to visit all these countries. I'll be able to not only catch up with old friends but have the best tour guide available (or even just a friend that speaks the local language, an invaluable asset). I'll have four continents to visit when all is said and done, in additional to within North America travel.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't in graduate school so that I could be making enough money to be traveling around the world. But if I hadn't gone to graduate school, I never would have met all my foreign friends. So it's worth it to postpone my world travels a few years. I'm independent enough to be comfortable traveling alone, but often a major part of the experience is being with someone to share the moments with. And graduate school, with all the friends I've met there, will have given me that.
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