Why Study Abroad?
“I am no longer just a Vietnamese girl brought up with stereotypes and limitations. I have washed myself off like a piece of fabric, hanging in the vast wind, ready to fly to distant lands, to witness magnificent sights, hear the whispers of wisdom, and touch the heritage of civilizations.”
Why study abroad? That question kept repeating itself in my conversations with people in Vietnam. “For better education” was my immediate answer. “Was that really my reason?” I pondered. It was simple, but not my full truth. However, each time I answered this question, I felt a sense of uneasiness within myself. I knew it was just the easiest way to escape from meaningless conversations.
As I embarked on the application process, this evocative question seemed to pervade my head, weaving through the neurons that eventually blocked my concentration. I thought I could hide by suppressing those voices in my inner self. I crammed in exams. I devoted myself to social projects. I sacrificed my sleeping routine. However, even in the heavy workload that I buried myself in, this question resurfaced, sprinkling feelings of incompetence as it wandered, reminding me to seek the answer — not to satisfy others, but to justify myself.
It seemed to be clear that the reason why I had not reached the answer was because I had never considered this matter with true reflection. As I was reading “Why Italian?” by Jhumpa Lahiri, I resonated with her metaphor of doors. Doors were unique in the sense that they were able to both push us toward new places and simultaneously limit our ability to reach them. Lahiri wrote, “Each door has a dual nature, a contradictory role. It functions as a barrier on one hand; as a point of entry on the other. The doors keep urging me forward. Each leads me to a new discovery, a new challenge, a new possibility.” Lahiri beautifully described the nature of the door using contradictions. Her sentences indicated a frustrating, ominous, but addictive journey. Like her, I realized I had always strived to open every door — fulfilling each task of the American college application process — without ever contemplating my genuine motivations. I was born with the perception that upon turning the knob and pushing through successfully, I would be filled with a powerful sense of fulfillment. Each miniature success, such as achieving a high GPA or finishing one essay prompt, released such stupendous dopamine, compelling my persistence to keep opening more doors. Upon arriving in America, the final door opened, letting me in. My journey of opening doors had reached its happy ending. “Nevertheless, how about my personal journey?” a thought occurred to me, as a sense of emptiness enveloped me. For the first time, I paused, perceived my new surroundings, and contemplated my true motivation for studying abroad — entering the final door of reaching America.
Entrance, on the one hand, is the act of going into a place; on the other, it is also about leaving things behind. Once a person enters a place, they learn to adapt, belong, and flourish. Upon entrance, the past engraves itself on the present to create a new future. Lahiri may describe this process as “grafting, … a transformation that feels magical.” I am now disconnected from my past, my country, which used to give me a sense of comfort and be my safest place. Perhaps I have always sought that transformation within myself: while maintaining my roots, I am eager to transplant into something new, a graft that enables me to continue growing and blossoming.
I am no longer just a Vietnamese girl brought up with stereotypes and limitations. Now, I have washed myself off like a piece of fabric, hanging in the vast wind, ready to fly to distant lands, to witness magnificent sights, hear the whispers of wisdom, and touch the heritage of civilizations. Each experience will be a novel but colorful mark forming the fabric of the cloth. Being soft like cotton, flexible like water, but having its own style, the cloth’s desire for autonomy and authenticity leads it through the wild wind.
No longer trapped by stereotypes and limitations, that fabric chooses to be whichever item it desires. A sweater? A satin dress? An ao dai? Only the fabric can tell which clothing item it will transform into over time. It might be buried in dust and soil sometimes, but the damage can not bury the value of that cloth. Through time, that piece of cloth will become a rare piece because it survived, shone through, and retained its merits despite the rigorous nature of time. That explains why people cannot tell the sincere values of a cloth when it was brand new; only time will reveal them.
In the end, why study abroad? To seek the meaning behind each door, to follow my path whichever way the wind takes me, and to realize my desire to be a grafted piece of cloth, dyed with various cultural colors and worn in with my own experiences. Throughout my journey to study in America, and even still, I am learning, flourishing, and weaving myself into an invaluable design of cloth.
Andrena Nguyen is a Fall 2024 finalist for the Rutgers Writing Centers’ First-Year Writing Spotlights. This initiative invites instructors to nominate students for outstanding work on a piece of reflective writing in their first-year College Writing course. To read more of the nominated essays, click here!