I used to think study abroad belonged to a certain kind of person. The effortlessly adaptable. The almost-detached. People who could pack their lives into a carry-on and leave without looking back.
Not people like me. Not people who take unglamorous photos of random street signs, who reread old text messages like a thriller novel, who feel things twice: once in the moment, and again, slower, when it settles.
But no one warns you about this study abroad secret: If you're someone who fosters deep connections, studying abroad isn't just outward. It turns inward almost immediately, and stays there. Every new moment arrives with the quiet, uncomfortable awareness that it is passing.
I'm not even halfway through. Everything I say right now is something I'm catching in motion.
The first thing I noticed were the greetings. Strangers passing on the street say ‘Buenas.’ No pause, just a word dropped into the air, easy as breathing. The first time it happened, I thought it was meant for someone else. The second time, I started to understand. Now I say it first sometimes, before they can. It's become a game I play with myself: who acknowledges who first. It's a small thing that changes the way a street feels–the way you move through Santiago, the way Santiago lets you in.
That feeling of being let in kept returning in unexpected places. In class, when I raise my hand to ask a question in Spanish, I know there’s a decent chance I will mangle the grammar. But then someone answers. Or nods. Or builds on it. The conversation keeps moving, and so do I. On my first day, I sat in the wrong classroom for twenty minutes, certain I would impress the professor with my punctuality. When the minutes went by, still alone in a lecture hall, I finally mustered the courage to ask another student for help. She didn't point me in the right direction. She walked me across campus even though her class started at the same time as mine. We made it with two minutes to spare.
Lunch with my host family can go either way. Some days, the conversation is surface-level like how rock climbing practice went, or what new flavor of ice cream I tried . Other nights it drifts into something else entirely. Growing up in Los Angeles. Politics. Life regrets. The kind of questions people don't usually ask unless they're prepared to sit with the answers. And I'm sitting there in a second language, trying to keep up, trying to mean what I say without overthinking every word. There's something clarifying about not having the luxury of hiding behind your mother tongue.
Last week, on a surf trip with Chilean friends and other exchange students along the coast, far from the rhythm of the city, I sat on my board, watching the sets roll in, trying to read which wave was worth committing to, when one of them asked: "Is there a way to say 'I appreciate you' in your culture? Not just thank you. Something deeper?" The question landed and nobody moved quickly to answer it. I sat with it longer than I expected to, turning it over. Not because I didn't know the words, but because I wasn't sure the words were the point. Someone eventually said something. The conversation moved on. But the question stayed.
It's still staying.
Then there are the moments that arrive without warning and don't leave cleanly. An Uber ride I expected to be quiet turned into a conversation about why the driver had left Venezuela. His family. Starting over. The strange, specific grief of building a life somewhere that was never supposed to be permanent. He talked, and I listened, and at some point I realized I didn't have anything to say that was adequate to what he was describing. So I just stayed present with it. I’ve learned thus far in my short time in Chile that sometimes the most honest response is your undivided attention.
The real challenge, for those who’ve spent their lives anchoring themselves in other people, isn't adapting to the new place. The real challenge is experiencing a warm, human interaction and already feeling its absence. It’s the moment of realization that this is what you've been looking for all along, but resisting the urge to pre-grieve it. The urge to protect yourself from the ending by holding the present at arm's length, to dilute what's happening now by rehearsing the goodbye. After all, it’s so much easier to hedge my presence because I’ll be on a plane home in July.
I’ve opted to take the much harder route and engage fully. Yes, I know it means the ending will hit harder. But it also means I won't miss the middle.
So to the ones like me–the reflective ones, the ones who feel everything twice– study abroad is still for you.
Maybe especially for you.
Raphi Rebucas
Spring 2026
GW Chile - Spanish Track (GW Study Program)
Columbian College of Arts and Science
Political Science & Peace Studies Double Major