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I’ve known I wanted to study abroad since I was in high school. I had watched my older friends and relatives participate in various study abroad programs, and I knew it was an invaluable experience that I also wanted to take part in. The only problem was that I chose a major that doesn’t really exist abroad. How was I going to study abroad and still complete my graduation requirements?
For some context, I’m a Theatre Design and Technology major with emphases in Stage Management and Sound Design, which is about as niche as it sounds. In my research, I found that while theatre programs do exist abroad, they’re almost exclusively performance-based, and I’m not a performer. Was I going to have to give up on my dream of studying abroad?
Now, I’m also a French minor, and there was the opportunity to study French somewhere, but I didn’t want to spend an entire semester away from studies that were relevant to my career path.
The solution? An international internship and careful configuration of my remaining graduation requirements. I attend a small liberal arts school in the US, so as part of my niche major I have a built-in fine arts minor to cover the artistic side of technical theatre. That means that a lot of my graduation requirements are art classes, and it just so happened that I hadn’t taken most of them yet when I began to plan for study abroad. I quickly discovered it was much easier to find art classes abroad than technical theatre classes, so I made a plan: I’d find a program with art classes that fulfilled my grad requirements, and then I’d be able to study abroad and stay on track for graduation!
The solution only got better when I discovered that with CEA I could not only take art classes abroad, but I could also do an international internship, and live in Paris where I’d get practical French experience. It was the perfect trifecta!
Before I discovered the CEA Study + Internship in Paris program, I was getting really discouraged thinking that I wouldn’t find a way to study abroad and bring relevant credits home. Now, I’m working at an internship that’s giving me career-related experience, I’m taking one art history class about modernism and another about architecture, and I’m studying and speaking French in a francophone country. Now that I’m here studying abroad in Paris, I feel comfortable knowing that I truly found the perfect program for me, and I’m making the most of every moment abroad!
Emily Counts is the Spring 2022 CEA MOJO Blogger in Paris, France, and is currently studying at Nebraska Wesleyan University.
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