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"As I traveled the world, I began to realize how overwhelmingly little I actually knew about the rest of the world and all of this incoming information was helping to provide me with added perspective and has thusly made me more well-rounded."

"The world may be becoming more interconnected, but it is still a very big place. I met all kinds of people from all walks of life all over the world and now I can say that I have close friends in five continents, including other civil engineers."

"I am happy to say that I have a network of close friends from all over the country! The four months absolutely flew by and now I feel more independent, open-minded, and motivated to make travel and international experiences a lifelong interest."

Don't be afraid to branch out. At Maryland, you know where people similar to yourself tend to hang out so many people surround themselves with like-minded individuals. That absolutely wasn't the case for me in Hong Kong so I ended up spending time with people I had little to nothing in common with other than we liked to explore and have fun.

"I learned that I'm more confident and independent than I knew - even in a foreign language. My interpersonal and Spanish skills improved so much in my time in Madrid, and I met some incredible professors and peers from Italy, Brazil, Croatia, France, and even Korea."

"After you spend six weeks not speaking English hardly at all, it's actually hard to adjust back! But more than just the basics of language, because of being disabled I really had to learn to communicate in a more nuanced way in Spanish so I could communicate what I needed to do and not do."