You Need to Study Abroad ASAP

Over Spring Break, I had the incredible and quite possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a Study Abroad trip to Iceland – the Land of Fire and Ice.

I think Iceland is on the list of life-changing destinations. During our week-long visit, we saw actively melting and breaking glaciers that seemed to glow blue in the overcast sunlight, flat fields of moss covering old lava flows as far as your eye can see, mountains so high they hide themselves in the clouds and black beaches with cliff faces that loom hundreds of feet above you.

It was Iceland that really put into perspective how small we are as people – its environment kind of shoves it in your face at every turn. You’re nothing but an ant next to the mountain Kirkjufell and a small, insignificant blip in history next to the vast majority of Iceland’s incredibly old geology.

Driving through Iceland’s countryside is like cutting through different alien worlds. Much of the mystical landscape is almost entirely untouched by man, spare the one- or two-lane roads you’re driving on.

The idea that a place could look so uniquely different from everything you’ve ever seen before makes sense in your mind until you really get there. It’s then that the vastness of it all doesn’t quite click – it’s mind-blowing.

I haven’t been able to travel much in my life, admittedly, so I feel like I can really only relate Iceland to New York City – previously the furthest I’ve ever been from home here in Alabama.

With New York City, the size of everything is shocking. The breadth of the city, the density of life and the overall verticality of the architecture is surprising, but not entirely foreign.

In a way, it’s a bit like somewhere like Atlanta or certain areas of Florida dialed to eleven.

On the other hand, Iceland is like the worlds you would make up as a kid running around in the woods or writing a story. It’s a distinct blend of earthly but unreal landscapes that feels like it could only be made up as a setting for an overambitious child author’s interpretation of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

For context, yes, I was that overambitious child author, and yes, I am making fun of that fact.

That statement still holds a lot of truth, though. It’s as though your childhood imagination that ran while you walked through the woods became tangible and unrolled itself in front of your eyes.

Gorgeous valleys of grass and moss, unimaginably big mountains, turbulent weather, black pebble beaches and constant mention of trolls made me feel a bit like a passerby in the eye-rollingly amateurish story I wrote all those years ago.

I’ve always said that should anyone get a chance to travel, they should take it and run with it. The opportunity to place yourself in a different context and learn more about how unfamiliarly familiar, or vice versa, the world can be is something that seems to be becoming increasingly scarce.

As we all get older, we get more solidified in ourselves and, therefore, our routines and our contexts. I believe it’s absolutely imperative to work against that complacency while it’s still simple and available.

I came to Troy University in the summer of 2023 to enroll as a journalism student – a career path I chose to pursue in large part due to the availability of travel. At the time, I wasn’t even aware we had a Study Abroad program whose entire purpose was to create opportunities for students to ship themselves across the globe easily and simply.

So now, fast-forwarding to today, it feels like a bit of a full-circle moment to have flown over the North Atlantic with some of the most important people I’ve met through my time learning and training to be a journalist.

That was another thing – not only did I have the chance to tour Iceland, the floating gem of the Atlantic, but I also got a chance to tour it with a group of some of my favorite people I’ve met here at Troy.

From Professor Cooper, who taught me all that I know about journalism, to Professor Arnold, who taught me all that I know about design, to Katy Clark, who was one of my first friends at Troy and who works alongside me in both classrooms and at The Tropolitan. I had both a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Iceland and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel with this incredible group of people.

That’s something I’m so extremely thankful for, and I owe a lot, quite possibly all of it, to the Study Abroad program for providing the opportunity. Through the program, I was able to visit a country I can almost certainly say I never would have otherwise, and I got to have one of the most enviable experiences of my life.

I also owe a very significant piece to Dr. Robbyn Taylor, who dedicated herself every day to keeping track of our group and keeping us all safe and comfortable.

Again, if you ever get a chance to go somewhere, no matter how weird, how boring, how bland or exciting, just go. Life is only so long, as is our youth, and it seems oftentimes opportunities are one and done.

You may never get another chance to go to New York, to Canada, to China, to Iceland or to anywhere in the world.

Just buckle in and go. You’ve only got so much time to get there.

Nate Henderson photos

A group of Troy University students visited Iceland over Spring Break.