Going abroad involves planning ahead.
During the planning, you should expect to experience ups
.. and downs.

There may be a long period from making the decision to pursue going abroad and the actual application deadlines.

This might divert and discourage you from making the final steps or even getting started. Eventually, you might challenge the reasoning that put yourself into the place of planning ahead.

It’s time for calibrating the direction. Understand why you choose to put in an effort in the first place.

I believe there is not one correct way of doing this. Each individual must navigate this in collaboration with peers and trusted ones.

One way is to allow past experiences to shed light on the topic. To come to an understanding of what motivated people in the past to make the decisions they did. Their thoughts and what they went through are likely to leave us better equipped for our future endeavours.

It seems natural that we are not the first generations going through these thoughts. Therefore, I will briefly introduce the motivations for going abroad from two well-known writers.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a Danish philosopher, went on a trip to Jutland, Denmark to allegedly find answers.

Despite being a Dane, the trip to Jutland from Copenhagen around 200 years ago was considered abroad (i guess it still holds true for some Danes :-)).

The expedition served the purpose of giving room for reflections regarding an important decision. A short-termed loss in connection and familiarity to make a long-termed change.

I think this is what H. C. Andersen (1805-1875), a Danish author, writes about in a diary of his. He encourages one to move to a new physical setting to move and grow as a human.

This will allow one to meet life with a different perspective. Prompt a change in perception and point of view.
This brings us closer to the essence of life, according to H. C. Andersen.

If relevant, I hope this will motivate to take a pause and ponder. Reassess what you hope to achieve with the aspirations and then give renewed energy to persist through the different parts of preparations for an application.

Written by Kenneth Kjær