Study abroad student Brooke Keeshan stood speechless at a Paris grocery store this spring, unable to understand the clerk’s words.
Keeshan, a seventh-semester communication major at the University Connecticut, studied abroad in spring 2025 at the American Business School of Paris, where she had the opportunity to take fashion classes not offered at UConn. She decided to study abroad because she wanted to try something new.
Keeshan said since it was her first week there, she didn’t speak any French. She was overwhelmed and anxious at the grocery store because she felt as if everyone was looking at her while she Google Translated the labels. After realizing she didn’t know what the clerk had asked, she said she only speaks English, gave an awkward smile, paid for her items and left embarrassed. She said she ran into situations like this quite a few times while living there.
“There are going to be moments where you embarrass yourself because you’re not used to being there,” Keeshan said.
Keeshan is one of 326 UConn students who studied abroad in spring of 2025, according to Laura Hills, UConn’s Experiential Global Learning associate director. According to the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers, about 1% of all students enrolled in higher education in the U.S. study abroad. Hills said there has been a “steady increase” in study abroad student participation since COVID-19 and it has been a “healthy bounce back.”
UConn EGL advisor Raquel Kupstis said one reason for this increase in recent years is students’ inability to study abroad and travel during quarantine. She also said this increase may be due to EGL offering a variety of study abroad programs. These include different timeline options, such as winter, summer, spring break and 10-day programs instead of the traditional semester-long programs, as well as different locations, including Africa, South America, Morocco, South Korea and more.
Keeshan said Paris was easy to travel to because of its central location in Europe.
According to 2022-23 school year data from NAFSA – the most recent data available – Europe is the top location for U.S. students who study abroad, with 64.4% going there that year. Open Doors Data shows that Italy ranked number one for U.S. students that year, with 41,840 visitors – 14.9% of all study abroad participants.
Hills said that Florence, Italy, is the top location for UConn students, with 50 to 85 students going each semester. The rest of Europe and the United Kingdom are UConn’s second most popular locations.
Kupstis said there are several reasons she thinks Italy is the most popular including the large Italian American population at UConn and in New England in general, students’ comfort in traveling with many other UConn students, the country’s familiarity and the flexibility to travel to other countries.
“You go with a group upwards of 80 students,” Kupstis said. “Having that community of other Huskies to go with, I think, provides a sense of comfort versus our exchange programs.”
Keeshan advises students studying abroad to put themselves out there, try new things and take any opportunity, even if they are unsure, because those are the experiences they’ll be glad they had.
“I would really recommend it to people who are scared of it, actually, because I feel like those are the people who are really going to benefit,” Keeshan said. “It helps you gain so much confidence. Even just learning to take the metro by yourself and learning that you have to do things by yourself.”
Keeshan said she was surprised by the amount of confidence studying abroad gave her for other transitions in her life, such as her plans to move to New York after college.
She said she feels more prepared professionally because of her study abroad experience and what she has learned about herself.
Kupstis said studying abroad is beneficial for students for many reasons.
“It fosters mutual understanding across cultures and I think that is a skill to have no matter what profession you go into,” Kupstis said. “I think that when you study abroad, you increase your global awareness about other cultures and, in turn, you learn more about yourself.”
She said other reasons to study abroad are career benefits and seeing the world from a new perspective.
Hills said business, psychology and social sciences are the top majors that study abroad at UConn. Of the six top majors Open Doors Data reported from the 2022-23 school year, business comes in first among all U.S. students who study abroad.
Kupstis said these majors study abroad the most because they have more flexibility, making it easier to take a semester of electives compared with STEM majors, who have a more rigorous schedule.
Gresa Aliu, a third-semester physiology and neurobiology major on the pre-med track, said she feels she has limited options to study abroad because not many STEM classes are offered, especially the more advanced ones.
Kupstis specializes in helping STEM students study abroad and said these majors often assume they don’t have this opportunity because of the courses they need to take. However, they can study abroad if they plan early, since the upper-level courses they need are offered at certain locations.
Another reason some students think they can’t study abroad is financial concerns; however, studying abroad can be more affordable than students realize, she said.
“I think that a lot of times students just rule it out because there’s no financial aid or
opportunities available,” Kupstis said. “But if they come in and talk to us, there’s actually a lot of different things that we can do to support students.”
Kupstis didn’t study abroad as an undergraduate because she assumed she couldn’t afford it, but she made it a priority during her master’s program. She said she later realized she would have saved money studying abroad instead of living on campus.
Keeshan said students may experience culture shock while studying abroad. She felt it herself during the first few weeks before Paris began to feel like home.
“I don’t know why I thought that I would be above the culture shock,” Keeshan said. “I was like, ‘Well, it’s Paris, you can’t be sad there.’”
Even if a student doesn’t want to study abroad, getting that passport is a big privilege and it’s one less barrier to studying abroad.
Raquel Kupstis, UConn EGL Advisor
Daniella Salzillo, a third-semester psychology major, said she hasn’t studied abroad yet, but did a similar program in high school where she lived in Italy and took classes for two months. She said students should consider studying abroad because they will learn a lot about other cultures, though she understands why some may hesitate.
“Your social life, leaving your friends here, you can text them, but you can’t really hang out with them and talk to them,” Salzillo said. “It also may be a lot depending on your major and classes and being able to take all your credits before you graduate.”
Kupstis said another reason students may hesitate to study abroad is a lack of a passport. However, EGL tackled this problem in order to make studying abroad accessible to all students. EGL has a global passport program at the beginning of the school year where they will help students apply for a passport, fund it if there are financial problems and take the passport photo, she said.
“Even if a student doesn’t want to study abroad, getting that passport is a big privilege and it’s one less barrier to studying abroad,” Kupstis said.
She said studying abroad made her realize how big the world is, how interconnected we all are and opened her mind up to new possibilities.
“One of the biggest benefits is just the sense of a global community,” Kupstis said. “So we can all come together and live a life that generates peace and harmony.”
Kupstis recommends students go to EGL drop-in hours or make an appointment if they are slightly curious about studying abroad because it is a great experience to have and there are always ways to make study abroad work, even if it isn’t for a whole semester.