The University of Connecticut has a total population of 24,076 undergraduate students. Of this population, there are around 50 exchange students for the 2024 fall semester. The exchange student body therefore makes up 0.2% of the collective student body.
The natural question at this point is whether the exchange student presence at the University of Connecticut is even really felt. The answer is one that only we, the exchange students, can give.
When you are sitting in a room with the people who are about to share a common experience with you for the next year, the first thing you ask is if expectations will match reality. Whether they admit it or not, every exchange student has a degree of nerves about the transition. Everything you’ve known is put aside as you realise all the home comforts are just that: at home, miles away.
The experience of the exchange students at the university is highly intersectional. Representing over twenty different countries, there is more on paper that separates us than unifies us.
Just like myself, there are another seven exchange students from the United Kingdom. Only one went to the same university as I did. Yet, it is easier to view each other as a sort of family. It is a group that has become an established home away from home. As the weeks roll on, we have all become more dynamic, branching out and exploring the plethora of opportunities that the university offers.
Being an exchange student, the only constant is change. Adapting to circumstances that are constantly changing and shifting is one of the most valuable skills you can acquire. The contours of the day to day at UConn are something that each of us is navigating differently. Interacting and forming friendships with those who have not had the same cultural experiences or backgrounds as I have had has certainly taken a lot of getting used to.
Although everyone at the university is very much an individual, there is still a relative commonality of experience that links students. I was asked the other week whether I am a ‘Husky’ yet. It is hard to know. I feel though that is the true marker of the bond between students. The shared identity that everyone feels under the banner of a community.
The conflict of trying to bring a part of your culture to the school and yet also assimilate with the way the University of Connecticut runs, is not lost on me. The novel and exploratory feeling of being both in a new life and being attached to life at home is sometimes difficult to reconcile. Though people at home depend on you, you also know that there is a reason why you are here, in this time and space.
Before the term commenced, we received a presentation on what to expect during this initial semester at the university. This brief outline could not have accounted for the seismic changes in customs that the experience of a year abroad entails: On the sports pitch, at the library, with conversation during lectures, in extra curriculars and even in the quiet of our own rooms, spaces and sanctuaries on campus, we are growing profoundly.
The end product is a form of metamorphosis. As we develop at UConn, we are also able to make our own mark on the University with our presence. Despite making up that less than 1%, we are striving to make as big an impact as possible. What we will remember is the places, spaces and people with whom we felt that sense of home, even on the other side of the world. Embarking on a year abroad is an experience like no other, and whilst we may not be Huskies today, I am sure we will leave as them.