By Riaan Dhankhar
Spending my junior year spring semester studying at University College London (UCL) was honestly pretty fantastic. There’s something wild about experiencing college life in the heart of London, where everything feels both completely familiar and totally different at the same time. As an international relations major, I was basically living the dream. London isn’t just another city – it’s one of the major hubs of European politics and economics. This hit home when I literally bumped into Rishi Sunak during a casual walk-through St. James Park (yes, that actually happened, and no, I still can’t believe it either). My classes at UCL were great, but the real education was happening just by being in London, especially during such an interesting political moment.
But here’s where it gets really good – the traveling! Let me tell you, nothing beats European budget airlines when you’re a college student. From Morocco to Hungary to Denmark, I managed to hit up over 16 cities. Each place came with its own language to attempt to learn, culture to explore, and architecture to gawk at. These trips weren’t just about checking boxes on a travel bucket list – they became the foundation for some serious friendships and, as it turns out, my future career.
My last hurrah abroad was probably the most impactful. My friends and I headed to Croatia, partly to soak up some sun and swim in that impossibly blue water, and partly to live out our Game of Thrones fantasies in Dubrovnik. But the real highlight was a day trip to Mostar in Bosnia. This wasn’t your typical tourist stop – we learned about the brutal reality of the Balkan wars, from the siege of Dubrovnik to the destruction of the famous Mostar bridge. Meeting survivors and hearing their stories firsthand was intense and eye-opening. Standing on the rebuilt Mostar bridge, surrounded by both Ottoman Empire relics and war-scarred buildings, really drove home the complex relationship between the European borderlands and the Middle East.
In the end that trip to Croatia and Bosnia ended up being surprisingly relevant to my career. After getting back to the States, I landed an internship at the State Department in the Office of South-Central Europe – literally the office that handles U.S. foreign policy for the Western Balkans. Everything I’d seen and learned while abroad suddenly became incredibly useful background knowledge for understanding U.S. policy in the region. The cherry on top? I got to work as a liaison officer at the NATO summit in Washington DC, where I met leaders from across Europe and the Balkans. And I even met Keir Starmer, who’d just won his election days before. I’d actually watched that whole election drama unfold while I was still in London, which made meeting him feel like the perfect full-circle moment.
Looking back, my semester abroad was exactly what it should be – equal parts fun adventures and real-world learning, with some unexpected career connections thrown in for good measure.
Not bad for a few months across the pond, right?