It’s May and the worst is past us now.Though every semester it is a struggle again; saying goodbye to friends, and welcoming new ones into your lives again. This is the deal as a student studying abroad, circling around in the international communities. No one is on home base, everyone’s stay has an expiring date. It makes the meetings more interesting, the connections more intense, and the breaks even more discomforting. 

I will not tell you how not to fail and I will not tell you how to be a good student. I will tell you how to deal with failing, because to most, it’s their worst nightmare as students. Studying abroad can have its own weight on our backs where we do not accept failure as an option. No matter what you study or where you come from, you are always expected to do your best, get the best marks, be top of the class because your parents did so while studying under candlelight. Expectations are not always met, and what succeeds is disappointment which then could lead us to failure.

Putting aside the previous discussed difficulties of living abroad, it is also paired with a lot of new and exciting experiences. However, it can be a challenge to give words to these experiences to your friends or family back home. Even after living in Hungary for a while, you might still find yourself lost for words when you get a question such as “What is Hungary like?”. You could say something about your university, the city, the friends you met and about some daily facts and figures, but this answer doesn’t quite seem to satisfy.