entrance essay

study abroad application essay.




I’m not going to lie and fabricate a story on how it’s been my dream to go to Europe (but to an extent, it really is) or write a sob story on how I grew up disadvantaged and going to a foreign country to study would complete my education career goals. Instead, I’m going to write about my dad and how he’s played a major role in encouraging me to study abroad.
To be honest, as a freshman, I really had no desire to study abroad, nor did I even consider it. Towards the end of my sophomore year at SFSU, my dad persistently brought up the topic of studying abroad and would ask me, “So are you looking into studying abroad?” with an expectation that I would either answer “yes”, or “maybe” at the very least. My dad has always had a “travel bug” in his system from as young as I can remember: my earliest memory is sitting in a golf cart basking in the sun with my sister in Orlando, Florida thanks to a second place win my dad scored on Jeopardy! Because of him, I’ve logged in many hours on the road on family vacations to places around the Southwest, been to the shabbiest and ritziest of airports, heard entertaining and boring tour guides recant their memorized speeches on tour buses, and traveled by train, boat, plane, ferry, taxi, motorbike…you name it. With my dad’s helpful reminders, the idea of traveling elsewhere to attend school became more and more appealing. I did independent research, looking at yearlong, bilateral, and private abroad programs and discovered the University of Amsterdam.
What I like about the university is that it is a member of the League of European Research Universities (comparable to the Ivy League here in the States), but also that their communication program is research-based, something that is constantly eclipsed by mass communication studies and difficult to come by in undergraduate curriculum. Ideally, I would like to go there for my Master’s since they have a one-year research communication program for graduate students. I have had very little exposure to Europe, and I think that this opportunity would help me to understand a different culture other than the ones I identify with, study different English dialects (I am an English Language minor), satiate my affinity for travel, and teach me Dutch!
But my dad’s influence stops here. I have collectively only had a little over a year’s worth of college, but have attained junior standing; this past semester I made the Dean’s list. I feel that these achievements indicate my academic ability and my seriousness towards my education. Not that any parent wants their child to be far away from them at any one time, I think traveling abroad would make myself and my dad very happy.