Mari Landgrebe - Ireland

Top 5 Things to Do...
When Studying Abroad in Ireland

You’re stuck with five to fifteen other students, and you most likely have never seen them during your entire time in university to date. There are adults who are not your parents but are in charge of keeping you in one piece. Grades are also involved. However will you survive?

Thousands of students have made it through in one piece, through a process of intense trial and error. Even so, Study Abroad can be just as terrifying as it is exhilarating. Customs might decide your lip balm is a threat to national security because it hasn’t been safely placed in a Ziploc bag. Your roommates have already planned a pub-crawl, to commence on arrival, after a 17 hour flight. The Irish accent of your cabdriver is too thick for your jetlag-addled brain, even if they speak English. The professors who will run your summer classes are from your school.

Never fear. Here are the Top 5 tips for thriving, not just surviving, on a study abroad trip.

1) Know Where You’re Going

Have you done your research? It’s not enough to know the name of the city and country you’ll be temporarily calling home. Do you at least know the country’s flag? It’s a start. Take a basic look at the important bits of culture and history. You should know that Guinness is not the only Irish beer that exists, or that Oliver Cromwell can be used as a slur against someone.

 The United States of America is a melting pot, and thus we learn the history of all the nations who have given us immigrants. Make an effort to learn a little bit about your new temporary home in Ireland before you land. It’s just polite.

2) But Don’t Go Overboard

You’re studying abroad to learn, and one of the best ways to learn is by experience. Don’t be afraid to get a little lost; just head out of the door of your dorm, pick a direction, and see where it leads you. Of course, basic safety precautions should be taken, like going during the day, in the general area of a populated area, and freshen up on your self-defense techniques—just in case.

Learning from books and Wikipedia are all fine and dandy, but it’s the people of the country you’re visiting who can tell you more than just the date of a battle or why they drive on the other side of the road and the car. Why do they care? What does it matter? They’ll probably tell you, if you let them.

The same goes with restaurants, museums, castles, bars. There are any number of websites or smartphone apps that can show you a rating or a critique of many things around town, but it’s the people who live in that town that can tell you what’s up. Which leads me to…

3) Fecking Talk To The Locals

Don’t rely on the advice of your professor, or your roommate’s friend of a friend who had a 4-hour layover in the town you’re living in for 4 weeks. Yeah, some McDonald’s freedom fries sound great right now, but have you tried the chips from that cart two streets off city center? A Guinness would really quench your throat after a long day of wandering the town, but wouldn’t you rather give the local artisan brew a shot?

At some point probably yes to both, but for the most part, you have to take advantage of available resources!

Trust me, no one back home wants to hear about all the American fast-food restaurants you found while in Ireland, unless you’re blowing their mind on SnapChat with a series of videos following the dramatic expulsion of a young intoxicated Irishman who just wanted to take a nap on a table at 5 am. Instead you could have been at a pub, posting on Instagram a picture of the pub’s announcement of a band playing a tribute to Garth Brooks.

4) Go It Alone

And I mean go. You can’t stay in your room. I mean you can, but that’s more like hibernating, not going. Explore your temporary home on your own, even for a little while. Feel like a loser for asking the grocer at the market how to get the grocery cart to separate from all the other grocery carts. Fumble with the unfamiliar currency with far too many extra coins (in your opinion) while trying to pay for the best meal you’ve ever had. Take your sweet, sweet time browsing a museum or store.

Going alone is also the best time to talk to the locals. Put your phone away; you probably don’t have a data plan, the bar probably doesn’t have wifi, and you probably do not need to play another round of solitaire. Listen to the conversations around you; it helps acclimate you to the accents. It also helps remind you that you are the foreigner here, and you won’t be here for very long. Take in as much as you can.

Most of all, going it alone is the best time to learn crisis aversion and management, especially if it’s your first time really branching out on your own. It isn’t so bad when you’re alone and miss a connecting train because you didn’t think the walk from the bus station would take so long, because there’s no one else to worry about. It forces you to take a deep breath, find the ticket booth, and explain what happened before asking for the cheapest and/or fastest available option to get where you need to go.

"Going it alone" is all about you. Does a day of doing super touristy things sound good to you? Go for it! You want to go into that charity shop instead of booking it to H&M? By golly, do it. You’ll probably find a few H&M items in that charity shop to begin with.

5) Don’t Forget to, You Know, Study While Studying Abroad

After all, loans were taken, permission slips signed, promises were made. However you managed to pay for your education, it’s important to remember that the primary reason you signed up was to learn and earn credits towards graduation. You will slip up; you will decide not to finish writing a paper for class and instead go check out a festival at the nearby park (not that I’m doing that right now…). But you have to pick and choose. Maybe that festival only happens one weekend a year; it would be a waste not to go. But you can go on a pub-crawl another weekend. Seriously, you didn’t pay tuition and fees, room and board, and airfare to drink. You can do that at home, for far cheaper.

Read what needs reading before your flight. Take notes so you remember when it’s discussed in class. If you can swing it, try to get a head start on some of the assignments. Basically, everything you tell yourself you’re going to do before every semester, but actually do it. Summer classes are a lot longer and a lot more compressed than regular semesters. It’s worth it.

This isn’t a vacation. But it’s so much more fun than summer classes in the same old building, on the same old campus, in the same old town. You’re studying, but you’re abroad!

 

BONUS ROUND!

These are tips for the Texas State University Study Abroad program for Cork City, Ireland!

 

1) Charity Shops for Clothes, Bring the Heels

Ladies and gents, the charity shops in Cork (and sometimes other towns and cities) have amazing finds. Leather jackets, Hurley jerseys, and going-out dresses are available for cheap to decent prices. Shoes in your size and your style can be harder to find in the charity shops, so pack some versatile pairs. Ladies, those sensible but stunning heels need to go in your suitcase! And gentlemen, a pair of sturdy dress shoes will not go amiss. No one wants to get caught with a killer outfit and no shoes to match a few hours before a night out.

2) Taking a Dip in Dingle

This one in particular is for the ladies: a loose dress, such as a maxi skirt, makes it easier to change after splashing about in Coumeenole beach. Since there are no changing areas, your best bet is a few trusty friends to hold up towels and blankets for you to change under. Don’t make them stand there with their arms opened wide while you struggle out of your bathing suit and into a pair of shorts.

3) When Eating at Home, Eat Cheap

And I mean really cheap. Stick to pasta, soup, and cereal from the discount bins. It sounds silly, but wait to have good stuff until you’re out and about. The English Market is a great source of artisan foods and gourmet flavors, but some of those things can rack up in costs. The same goes with Starbucks coffee before and between classes—get a travel mug and learn to accept instant coffee.

Here’s why I suggest this: Your food will go bad, because you will be out of your apartment around meal times more than you think. That gorgeous loaf of bread you got from the English Market doesn’t have preservatives, so it won’t last long. Those charity commercials aren’t lying; the cost of your daily cup of Starbucks and a scone can feed someone for a week. You might as well feed yourself.

 

4) There’s No Reason to Not Pre-Game

Let me preface this by saying that you can drink at home without spending anywhere near as much money as it costs to attend the Ireland Study Abroad program. A good pub-crawl or two is great, but don’t forget that you’re attending school as well.

If you’re not familiar with the term (and I doubt you aren’t), "Pre-Gaming" is the art of drinking before you go out for a night of drinking. At this writing, 1 USD buys only 0.70 EUR, so it costs more for our American minds and earnings to party in Ireland. We Pre-Game at home so as to save money on drinks when going to the bars and clubs; if it’s a night out for you, have a glass of cheap wine at home while getting ready.

As always: be smart, responsible, and watch out for your friends. Cork is a really safe city, but it is still a city full of people you don’t know.

5) Buy an International Call Plan, Use an App for Texts

You should always check with your phone provider, but if you’re bringing your cell phone to Ireland, buy the cheapest international call plan you can. Here’s why: this writer was informed by her service provider that if a phone call came through and was picked up or reached voicemail, she would be charged a minute. Don’t end up paying for telemarketers trying to sell you something, or doctor’s offices reminding you to make a follow-up appointment. Cover that base, at least.

For texting, however, use a smartphone app or another messaging system, like Skype or Facebook. This writer regrets buying the most expensive International Texting Plan, only to get communication through other messaging systems.