Matt Carney, professional writing and history junior, plays frisbee on the beach in Majorca, Spain. Carney is studying abroad in London this semester. Photo provided from Matt Carney's Blog: http://mattinlondon.tumblr.com

Hypothetical situation: Let’s say one Tuesday morning at 9:07 you’re hurrying across a muddy South Oval. You’re racing against the likelihood of tallying your third class absence of the semester, as well as battling the life-sucking gusts of Oklahoma’s morning wind because you failed to grab your heavy down jacket as you blew across half of Norman on your way to campus. And suddenly you realize that your 10-minute lunch break between your 10:30 and 12 o’clock is not nearly enough time to purchase and eat both breakfast and lunch.

Your day is not looking so great.

But lucky you, somebody is coming along with an answer. After your long day spent nodding off during lectures and doodling alternating versions of Landry Jones’ mustache (the Fu Manchu induces a fit of muffled laughter from your neighbor), a university employee informs you that you could spend the upcoming semester enrolled in 12 pass-fail credit hours of your choice in a scenic location, chock-full of cultural and historical intrigue and thousands of miles removed from the frantic pace and labor of the American education model.

Your interest is piqued.

The employee continues, mentioning that there’s no additional tuition charge for studying at one of the 100-plus worldwide universities with which OU’s Education Abroad office maintains partnership. Furthermore, scholarships are available to fund travel expenses, and summer and individual college programs also exist.

At this point, you may be considering how much luggage you’d need to uproot for four months, and fly to Charles de Gaulle, Heathrow, Frankfurt, Hong Kong International or wherever.

I settled on Heathrow, and I am midway through my second month at Middlesex University in North London. To quote the too-often-quoted Robert Frost, “And that has made all the difference.”

So now the hypothetical has revealed itself as a dramatized reflection of my thoughts from last spring, begging the column’s true question: “Really, why not study abroad?”

Aside from the personal soul searching and the interesting contrast between domestic and foreign educations that present themselves while studying abroad, the sheer magnitude of opportunity afforded by a foreign city is overwhelming.

Classless afternoons here can be whiled away admiring architecture erected before America’s first revolutionary thought.

One with a keen eye can’t walk five minutes through central London without spotting an art exhibit or free museum. And travel to the continent is affordable.

International conversation is impossible to avoid between the mix of hostels, pubs, weekend apartments, coffee shops, crash pads and dorm life that all come and go. This is the educating that lays the foundation for your formal education.

Music, art, architecture, history, foreign minds, fresh perspectives – they’re all here. And the cool thing about “here” is that it’s everywhere out there, and it’s different wherever it is. “Here” is in London, it’s in Arezzo, it’s in Singapore, it’s in Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and Cork and Melbourne.

“Here” is waiting for you, and it’s really, really cool. Consider this an advertisement for OU’s education abroad office, but really more a wholehearted advertisement for an opportunity that you can seize for yourself to explore beyond your own world and into one that will challenge the way you comprehend almost everything about your own culture.

It’s frightening – and it’s wonderful.