As someone with extensive travel experience and is a foreign-born student that has lived abroad for half his life, I really don’t believe I will struggle with any aspect of “being overseas”. Therefore, I think one of the biggest struggles I may have will finding the balance between traveling and working. Therefore, over the course of this program, I plan to learn ways and habits to create that perfect balance between having fun while also being timely and professional on all our school sponsored events.

I think one of the biggest challenges I face throughout my life is that I sometimes struggle to find the balance of what some might call “work hard, play hard.” I feel that I either have too much fun and cannot focus on my work, or much more often, I find that I work too hard and can feel too burned out to enjoy my free time and rather choose to relax and basically be running on low-battery mode. On a short-term, study-abroad program where there is an even balance of work and professional time in comparison to free time, I think it could be the perfect opportunity to work on my skills of balancing between both modes. Since we are only in the country for two weeks, this also means that I will have the relatively right amount of time to condition myself to be able to pull it off consistently. Short-term, I plan to create an equilibrium between going with the flow and sticking to a work-schedule. Furthermore, I think I could even push the boundaries and learn to have fun while working, or vice-verse. I think through the bonds I create with my peers during the trip, and the situations we go through together, I can figure out how to stay professional while enjoying the whole process. Since many days will involve going to meetings or site-visits, learning to appreciate and engage with the activities while also being social, funny, and enjoying the whole experience will improve my time there and also push forward my networking skills. I think walking the line between writing daily blogs and doing tourist-activities during the day may become challenging as we go around the city and have longer nights out, but finding time to work on it so that I can have the free time to explore for longer will teach me the right time management skills.

Overall, this experience will be a way for me to learn how to enjoy the journey of life, both now and in the future as I move forward in my academic and professional career, where I’ll be having to find ways to not burn myself out while staying consistent throughout work.