My name is Mary Harkleroad and I am an undergraduate biomedical engineering student here at the University of Iowa. I participated in the CIMBA program located in Northern Italy at the Istituto Filippin. I was the first person in my family to study abroad as well as being the first to attend college. Needless to say, my family and myself were very skeptical about studying abroad at first. College alone provides many financial and personal challenges but applying the same concepts and adding in a whole new country is difficult to wrap your mind around. But it doesn’t have to be.

My name is Jenny and I am an undergraduate student currently in the athletic training program. I am a first generation student from the suburbs of Chicago. I am half Polish and half Guatemalan and, as you can imagine, I was brought up in a household full of different culture. From a young age I was very interested in indulging in different cultures so I knew studying abroad was something I wanted to do when I came to the University of Iowa.

My name is Ashley Arkfeld, and I am a first generation student as well as the first in my family to study abroad. I interned abroad in Barcelona, Spain this summer. Funding a trip abroad for an unpaid internship was something that many of my peers, family members, and friends couldn’t quite wrap their heads around. “Why are you paying to go work over there?” “Couldn’t you get a paid internship here?” “That seems like a waste of money.” I listened to comments and questions such as these for months prior to my trip abroad. Though it seemed silly to so many bystanders, the experience was worth the cost in my eyes. With that being said, scholarships and grants covered 70% of my program costs.

My name is Kelsey O’Donnell and I am a fourth year student double majoring in International Studies and Anthropology. For my entire third year, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Cork, Ireland. As a first-generation college student, my sisters and I are the first of our family to attend university, while I am the first of my family to travel abroad. As indicated by my choice in majors, I have always enjoyed learning about other cultures and traveling. As a first year student at Iowa, I was bombarded with information about events and opportunities.

I never have traveled outside of the Continental US and Mexico. Being a first-generation student from a Mexican background, every opportunity I have had to go on a trip was usually to visit my family in Mexico. Although, I have always wanted to go somewhere completely different from anything I have experienced before. I decided to, quite abruptly, apply to the London Winterim Program. I felt that a college experience would just not be complete unless one studies abroad while they have the opportunity to and I also really wanted to experience being in another continent.

Hello University of Iowa students thinking about studying abroad! Last year, around this time, I was looking into studying abroad just like you! This experience has changed my life. I saw my textbooks come to life, met amazing people, and, above all, found myself.

Kali Slaymaker is a first-generation college student who will earn her degree in marketing from the University of Iowa in 2016 after just three years of study. Kali was a 2015 recipient of the Diversity Ambassador Scholarship for Study Abroad which she applied toward a summer program with CIMBA in Paderno Del Grappa, Italy during summer 2015. The following is a reflection by Kali on her time abroad.

UI Study Abroad Diversity Ambassador Scholar Mikkia Graves is a senior majoring in mathematics with a minor in statistics and a certificate in entrepreneurial management. This winter, Graves studied abroad on the USAC Havana Program in Havana, Cuba, where she explored the history and culture of Cuba. In this letter, she reflects on her study abroad experiences in Cuba and India as both a first-generation college student and an African American woman.

If you are reading this letter, you may be pondering the idea of studying abroad and trying to decide whether it is something you should do. As a senior in my last year in the College of Education, I debated the idea for many reasons, but the biggest one being the cost. See, my original goal coming out of high school and soon to be first generation college student was to go to college and excel in my academics in order to achieve greatness, but never was it in my plan to study abroad.