It's difficult to gauge the impact of exchange on daily life until after it's over and you've lived life outside of it. And once you do, you come to realize just how incredibly imprinted you are by your experience. The effect isn't always so obvious either. Of course, speaking with Thai people at Thai restaurants or seeing something explicitly Thai instantaneously brightens my day, but it's the subtle impacts that really catch me. Being able to view almost everything now with cultural relativism is the greatest effect of my exchange. I don't find myself pulled to one side versus another of social/political issues, mine and others' emotions, or controversial concepts. It is so easy now for me to put myself in another's shoes and view something like they would. That's something you truly don't understand until you're displaced into another part of the world and are forced to adapt. In addition, and this fact also correlates with being able to view the world with cultural relativism, I find myself so much more consistently calm, collected, and prepared. Emergencies do not phase me. Stress motivates me. I tend to lead in intense situations. When us YES Abroad students were abroad, we had to think on our feet. We sometimes had to make split-second decisions, and sometimes those decisions were big ones. There wasn't always someone there to hold our hand in choosing what direction of life we were going to go next.
This kaleidoscopic year was a bridge in which our paths in learning how to become autonomous adults was put on hyperdrive. And now that we're almost one year post-return, I don't know many people our age that are more mature, intelligent, open-minded, driven, or tenacious. I am in awe when I see what my fellow alumni are doing with their lives. One visit to Facebook takes you on a tour around the world. YES Abroad alumni have literally stepped foot on all 7 continents, explored countries you never even knew existed, assisted in major global health efforts, met and discussed with so many powerful members of our government and governments abroad, advocated for social justice for those underrepresented and disenfranchised, learned a plethora of foreign languages, won hundreds of thousands of dollars in forms of research grants and scholarships, attend(ed) the best of the best universities, continued the legacy of study abroad with further study abroad during college, and lastly but most importantly, sacrificed so much valuable time to bettering the world we live in.
We all share at least one thing in common. We are all hyper-adventure seekers who possess these vagabond hearts & minds that aren't satisfied with complacency, stagnancy, or the status quo. I became a part of the YES Abroad family 2 years ago before my program even began, and it's been such an exciting roller coaster with everyone so far. I exponentially learn every single day from my fellow alumni and current programmers. I truly appreciate the privilege of gaining global knowledge every single day; not everyone has access to that. I am so proud of our accomplishments and I know we will keep working so incredibly hard to impact the world just as it has impacted us. Alone, our accomplishments don't seem too big or meaningful, but together, we're already bettering this world in such a huge way.
20 years from today? I can't even begin to imagine where we'll be.
Until next time,
Brandon
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