Transforming My Ideals
Study abroad was perfect for me in its imperfections
By Allison Speicher
I arrived in England armed with a lifelong appreciation of Britain’s literary tradition and eight years’ experience in diversity-related activism. I thought I was prepared for my study abroad stay, but it had not dawned on me that this experience might not be perfect for me. I attended classes only five hours a week, including two hours of lecture, which the British students quickly taught me were optional. I did my class reading for another 20 hours a week, but I was left to wonder how I had filled the other 143 hours each week in the States. Part of the answer was more coursework, but a larger part was activism. The hours I had spent working with the feminist organization, the multicultural student group, and the social justice dialogue committee had been the brightest and most multitudinous (to borrow from the Bard) at my home university.
Travel was a worthy pursuit, but one cannot be on the move constantly, and I found myself poorly attempting to assimilate into a university culture where drinking and partying is almost a nightly event. These were not cultural experiences; they were empty and frustrating because they were things the woman who got on that plane in Kennedy Airport would not have done.
It did not take me long to realize that I was still that woman and that this mimicry of a life was a waste of the gift I had been given as a scholarship student. My study abroad experience began at this moment of realization. Although I was 3,000 miles from the groups through which I had expressed my values, I was not removed from the values themselves. From then on, I never skipped a class, and I walked five miles to church (not because I expected to be smote by the hand of an angry God, but because I did not want a life without something in which to believe). Not only did I learn that walking is not a big sacrifice to make for the environment, but it was at church that I first noticed people selling Fair Trade goods and I began asking questions. I noticed that our dining hall served Fair Trade rice and bananas, and I felt much better swallowing whatever other gravy-laden repast was served alongside them.
My growing interest in Fair Trade goods drew me to the window of our neighborhood Oxfam bookshop, where I saw not only the Fair Trade logo but also signs announcing a campaign to raise funds to support refugees in Darfur, a cause for which I had fundraised on my own home campus.
In an almost Dickensian coincidence, the bookshop was looking for volunteers. I finally felt at home and had an authentic international experience, working with both British and French volunteers, laughing over the differences in our diction; debating the relative merits of Faulkner, Forster, and Flaubert; and drinking endless amounts of tea. Perhaps the biggest privilege of my study abroad experience was not seeing the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, La Sagrada Familia, and the Charles Bridge but rather to call myself a part of the “Oxfamily” and take responsibility for the injustices of life in the broader international community.
My all-too-brief two-month stint as an Oxfam volunteer put the rest of my study abroad experience into perspective. From the moment I started asking questions about Fair Trade, that woman who got on the plane at Kennedy airport was being, as Dickens would say, recalled to life. Even though my activism languished when I first arrived, I left England not only with an irrepressible penchant to pepper my prose with references to Shakespeare and Dickens, but also with a new activist vigor and a better understanding of the scarcity of voices like mine in the daily conversations of the world’s most privileged countries. I thought I was perfect for study abroad, but instead, study abroad was perfect for me in its imperfections, pushing me harder to live according to my values and helping me find new ones.
This bio was current at the time of publication:
Allison Speicher studied abroad at the University of Bristol in England from January through June 2007. She attends the University of Richmond, and her major is English. She has minors in secondary education and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies.