Hi friends! Welcome to my first post on this law abroad blog and my first blog post ever! I am so excited to be blogging as a creative outlet. As a millennial I love nothing more than oversharing and attention so it was only a matter of time before I fully committed to something like this. My upcoming exchange semester at the University of Copenhagen’s law school has been a great motivator and starting point for my posts because if nothing else, I am certain that my family will want to follow along with my activities (hi Mom, Dad, Tad, Aunt Carol, and Grandma!).
I am currently sitting in the Orlando Airport, waiting for my adventure to begin. My poor bags are checked and filled to the brim. I’m wearing two sweaters. I’m anxious, nervous, and excited all at once. I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Why am I here?
I’ve always had an insatiable sense of adventure. Never settling for “safe” or “easy” decisions, I have worked at Adventureland at Disney, moved to New Orleans for law school, and spent the last summer studying in Siena, Italy.
Siena whet my appetite for an immersive cultural experience. I enjoyed my four weeks abroad as much as I could, given the 800 or so pages of reading assigned for the 5 credit class I took (law school has an uncanny ability to dampen fun.) However, four weeks is still basically a vacation. I want to really live in a new country so it seems like a natural choice to take a semester abroad. It’s 2018 and we are becoming much more connected so I am excited to gain a working knowledge of different legal systems.
Buy why Copenhagen? From a purely academic standpoint, the University of Copenhagen offered the most legal classes that I was interested in. This fall, I had a choice from over 30 different courses taught in English and so many of them are in areas that I would love to pursue after graduation. The other exchange options I had either offered significantly fewer courses or they were in areas that I have no interest in. If I’m going to be taking classes in Europe they best be classes that I will actually be motivated to attend. After all, it’s called “study” abroad and not “take a vacation for a semester” abroad.
Of course, my decision to go to Denmark was not completely academic. While I have never been to Copenhagen or Scandinavia at all, their reputation for happy citizens definitely caught my interest. I also have a former coworker (and current friend) who studied with DIS in Copenhagen during undergrad and has constantly praised the city and has served as a significant influence on my decision.
Basically, a combination of academics and culture made my decision to study at the University of Copenhagen relatively easy.
I am leaving my comfort zone behind. First (and most obvious), I’m going to be living in a foreign country for a good chunk of time. While I consider myself to be very independent, it’s still going to be an adjustment, especially because I won’t have familiar faces in Copenhagen. Second, blogging is completely new to me. I am so self-conscious about my writing and my thoughts that it took me a long time to actually commit and write this post. I had originally meant to start this project in June or July oops. Hopefully, once I see this published, I will feel more at ease with the whole thing and will stop caring about being judged by others to post regularly.
I have rambled on long enough. Look forward to many more posts about coping in Copenhagen once I actually leave the States!
