Kendall Bannowsky, Alumni Ambassador

1. How has your study abroad experience shaped you? 

Looking at how it will affect future careers is tremendous. Studying abroad teaches you many things for example patience, communication, time management, and much more. These are all things that are very important in the workforce and studying abroad pushes these attributes to the max. Personally I have grown so much. I have been able to travel to six different countries, and meet people from all over the world. I have been away from my family and been forced to find a new form of familiarity while abroad. Stereotypes have been broken and I have been able to see the world at its purest form. I did this completely for and by myself and have formed a stronger independence. I have also learned to take life less seriously and enjoy the things I’m surrounded by. Rather I missed my train or can’t understand the people around me it turned out to be a great memory and made my adventure much more enjoyable.

2. What are your best tips for practicing language while abroad? 

I studied German while abroad and I believe I was very lucky with the professor I had. He was always patient and made sure that I understood what was being discussed. I was the only American in the class of 5 and the only one that only knew one language. This was very intimidating on the first day of class and made me very apprehensive to continue on. In the end, my German class ended up being my favorite one and my whole class was very patient and nice. My biggest advice is to stick with it and study often. Create sticky notes to put around your apartment and section of a piece of your day to only focus on your language of course. Also, see if your CEA office has any native language speakers of the chosen language. I met once a week with an onsite staff leader that helped me.