Dear [insert your name here],
Coming home has been more difficult than I could have ever imagined. My homecoming was peppered with feelings of warmth and love, a return to where it all began. Yet, coming home was contemporaneously a point of embarkation, the beginning of a new chapter in my life, a voyage across the sea of sense and sensibility. As I try to identify with home, the harder it seems to moor. Living in India for four months, I adapted and I understood. I must do the same now at home. With Thanksgiving on our heels, I will, harvest a new identity. I will sow the seeds of experience to cultivate a new perspective on life. I will set my eyes on the new world. I maximized the study abroad experience in the land of curd and chutney and now take it upon myself to do the same in the land of milk and honey.
To those forthcoming students who are thinking about studying abroad, I urge you to do so with intent. I am a firm believer in making the study abroad experience a more comprehensive process—an informative and a transformative experience. Take time for reflection and take that leap into the void to discover the inconceivable. Best wishes for your journey that lies ahead.
p.s. don’t forget to “live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Yours,
Aleksandr Chandra
Aleksandr Chandra 