Junior infielder Ben Isaak has taken his talents overseas for the 2019 Fall Semester to study at Suffolk's Madrid campus. While stamping his academic passport, Isaak will check in with GoSuffolkRams.com from time-to-time to tell Ram Nation what she has been up to abroad.
Below is the fifth installment, features Isaak's reasons why a student should study abroad and how he's spending his time before traveling home December 23rd.
Mostly what I’ve been writing about these past few entries has been the opportunities I’ve had to travel, but something else that’s just as important is having the desire to travel and not stay in the dorms (after all Netflix Spain has a lot more titles than the USA version). Suffolk Madrid makes it easy and a necessity to travel as much as you can. Students who arrive in Madrid motivated to travel, explore, and challenge their idea of normal are the students who I can tell get the most out of their time. As one of my closest friends mentioned to me just the other day, the ideal motivation for studying abroad should come from yourself, nowhere else. Those who truly want to step outside their comfort zone will take full advantage. He said to me, “don’t study abroad because it’s the cool thing to put on your Instagram.” I mention this because most of you are probably reading this through Instagram; and there’s nothing wrong with this, just don’t live your study abroad experience through the gram is what he was saying.
The end of the semester means the end of a bunch of newfound friendships. At SUMC, all 100-150 of us are together in the same rooms working on our studies four days a week and most of us find ourselves together the other three days at the residence. Not to mention the school planned group excursions to major cities, everyone becomes extremely close with each other and everyone knows one another. Although many of us will see each other around Suffolk Boston again, many of us won’t. It makes for a weird feeling when everyone suddenly parts ways at the farewell dinner after spending what at first seemed to be an infinite amount of time together. I hope that everyone with whom I studied with this semester continues to grow and accomplish good things. Being a film student, I greatly enjoy the process of making videos and have used Suffolk’s study abroad program for just that purpose. Thanks to the consent of the Suffolk Madrid Campus, I was able to film the three excursions to Lisbon, Budapest, and Rome, the first two of which are currently on my YouTube channel.
Finals for most students are finished by December 5, which gives students another gap of time to travel. Without a willingness to risk missing the end of the year dinner paid for by Suffolk, I left Madrid on the 12th and I’m currently visiting the north of Spain in Huesca. With more time before Christmas I would have tried walking the Camino de Santiago which leaves you a lot of time to think, I’ll make up that time instead by using the bullet trains to visit as many cities as I can before my flight back to Boston on the 23rd. After Huesca, Barcelona is next on my list and then Valencia if I have time. I’ll spend a couple more nights in Madrid before I go to say goodbye to a city that’s treated me so well.
Me encanta España!
Fans, families, alumni and friends can check in with what Isaak and Phelan are up to over sees by following their adventures on GoSuffolkRams.com or over social media by using the hashtag #RAMsinterNATIONal.