{"id":865,"date":"2025-11-07T09:58:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/?p=865"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:58:27","slug":"love-letter-to-studying-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/2025\/11\/07\/love-letter-to-studying-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Letter to Studying Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Written by: Caroline Gross |\u00a0 Summer 2024<br \/>\nThe Pursuit of Life, Love and Happiness in the Developing World in Kenya<\/p>\n<p>Deciding to study abroad in Africa was one of the best decisions I could have made for<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/files\/2025\/10\/Caroline-Gross_The-Pursuit-of-Life-Love-and-Happiness-in-the-Developing-World_Sum-24_Group-Selfie.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-866 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/files\/2025\/10\/Caroline-Gross_The-Pursuit-of-Life-Love-and-Happiness-in-the-Developing-World_Sum-24_Group-Selfie-348x261-custom.jpeg\" alt=\"Selfie of Caroline Gross with students in Kenya\" width=\"348\" height=\"261\" \/><\/a> myself. I have always had a desire to travel and learn more about the world. This was my first opportunity to leave the United States and I am so happy that I had the opportunity and ability to go to Africa. Through studying abroad I was able to be fully immersed in a new culture which allowed me to learn so much. While my trip was short, it was life-changing. I have new perspectives from the experiences I got while away.<\/p>\n<p>Since being back in the United<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/files\/2025\/10\/Carli-Peak_Kenya_SU24_3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-867 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/files\/2025\/10\/Carli-Peak_Kenya_SU24_3-280x190-custom.jpg\" alt=\"Elephant in Kenya\" width=\"280\" height=\"190\" \/><\/a> States a question I continue to get is \u201cWhat was your favorite part?\u201d and while I enjoyed every second of the trip I have a specific answer. My favorite part of the trip was meeting the locals, hearing their stories, and learning from them. Without them, this trip would not have led to as much growth for me. Everyone was so welcoming and willing to share their time and experiences with me which I am forever grateful for. Thelocals had the biggest impact on my experiences and overall growth from this opportunity. My experiences in Kenya have furthered my education and professional growth. As an education major, it was very valuable to learn about the education system in Kenya by directly seeing it and hearing about it from the people who have been a part of it. I also got to explore the beautiful environment through different excursions. I am extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya and be fully immersed in this learning experience. I hope to continue to grow as an individual through further exploration of the world.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-868 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/files\/2025\/10\/Carli-Peak_Kenya_SU24_6-1-326x244-custom.jpg\" alt=\"Butler students looking out over mountain\" width=\"326\" height=\"244\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by: Caroline Gross |\u00a0 Summer 2024 The Pursuit of Life, Love and Happiness in the Developing World in Kenya Deciding to study abroad in Africa was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself. I have &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/2025\/11\/07\/love-letter-to-studying-abroad\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9196996,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9196996"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":928,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions\/928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}