Dear Cairn,

I am currently sitting in the oldest coffee house in England (although the café across the street would beg to differ; apparently this coffee grudge-match has been going on since 1654), drinking a latte made with Turkish espresso and eating breakfast. Which, in the traditional British manner, includes an entire can of baked beans.

If you would have told me a year or two ago that this was the way I would be spending my mornings in March of 2016, I would have called you crazy.

Yet here I am, an enrolled student at the University of Oxford. I have spent the past eleven weeks getting lost in the Bodleian Library, weaving in and out of double-decker buses on my rental bike (lovingly named Sebastian, my trusty steed), and slowly draining my bank account by way of lattes, English breakfasts, and scones (shout out to the ridiculous dollar-to-pound conversion rate. Also, clotted cream, despite the revolting name, needs to be a thing in America.). I’ve consumed more cups of tea in the past 11 weeks than I have in my entire lifetime; add the tea to the amount of coffee I have to consume on a daily basis in order to stay alive, and I think all the blood in my body has officially been replaced with caffeine. I’ve sat in over thirty lectures given by world-renowned scholars in the famous Examination Schools, written over 36,300 words (I’ll do the math for you: that’s over 150 pages) with two essays and a research project still left, read—or, I guess I’ll be honest, skimmed—close to 200 books and articles, and spent more days locked in the Vere Harmsworth American Research Library than I ever want to think about. I’ve had the leading researcher in American History at Pembroke College call my essays brilliant, and then had the same historian interrupt me in the middle of my essay to casually tear my points to pieces (there’s nothing more humbling than having a British man school you in American history week after week.). I’ve travelled to London, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague with nothing more than a backpack and a lot of Hungarian money. I walked into a practice for Oxford’s varsity volleyball team and walked out with a starting position. By the end of term, I had played volleyball in Oxford, London, East Anglia, and Bournemouth, culminating with a national tournament appearance against Olympic training teams, in which Oxford finished 7th in the country. I’ve seen King Arthur’s round table, gone on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Alban (look him up, he’s a pretty cool guy), climbed on the ruins of a Roman theater, explored a castle by the sea, and seen Hamlet performed in Shakespeare’s hometown. Harry Potter was filmed in my library, Benedict Cumberbatch shut down Turl Street for a day to film at Exeter College, and Shia LaBeouf spent 24 hours in Oxford doing, well, Shia LaBeouf things (the line for the elevator was over 8 hours long, so no, I didn’t go see him). I was granted access to do manuscript research on 1920s modernist literary magazines and had more than one academic authority suggest that I return to Oxford to pursue graduate work. Thinking back on all of the experiences I’ve had this semester seems like an exercise in insanity to me; I never dreamt that I could see and do all of the things I’ve listed in the span of my lifetime, let alone in one short semester.

I expect that when I return home, I’ll have dozens of people inquiring about my trip abroad. I’ll most likely be approached by professors and other university faculty at Cairn asking me to tell about my experiences. Students who are considering studying abroad will seek me out for help deciding whether a semester abroad is worth it. And, with all of the experiences that I’ve listed already, it seems that it should be very easy for me to persuade other people that studying abroad—in Oxford or with any of the other programs Cairn offers—is an opportunity that every Cairn student should consider. It’s easy to use adjectives like “incredible” or and “life-changing” when referring to an experience like this one to make it attractive, glitzy, and glamorous. But having your life completely changed is not a glitzy affair. Experiencing the cultural and personal upheaval that studying in a different country inevitably brings does not make for good recruitment material. Yet I would be doing my entire experience an injustice if I simply whitewashed my time in England with pithy statements of amazement at how my life has been transformed by my time here.

Because when it comes to an experience like this one, having your life transformed is so much less about finding yourself than it is about losing yourself. And learning how to lose yourself is exposing, uncomfortable, and, quite frankly, terrifying—words that most glossy brochures will not include.

So I’ll include them here—all of the moments that I’ve experienced over the past few months that have left me feeling isolated, uncomfortable, confused, and lost. Learning to live and work in Oxford, England has basically been a perpetual string of scary situations in which I’ve come to conclude that the more I know, the less I understand. There’s a profound sense of lack of belonging that follows you everywhere you go in Oxford—from walking the city streets, to ordering in coffeehouses, to attending lectures, to navigating the libraries, to interacting with professional academic tutors—you feel as if you’re in a world that is constantly three steps ahead of you and your brain will never catch up. There’s a saying here in Oxford, rather tongue-in-cheek: “Oxford University: Where your best hasn’t been good enough since 1096.” While we throw this phrase around in jest, the sense of inadequacy is truly sobering. If you’re looking for a good way to lose your understanding of yourself, lock yourself in a library for eight hours and in your room for another five, reading and writing on a topic only to realize that you have no idea what you’re talking about—and your essay is due early the next morning.

And the list of terrifying transformative moments continues. I’ve lost myself in conversations with academic authorities who do not hold the same beliefs as I, in which I have to attempt to defend my choice of attending an evangelical school like Cairn over somewhere prestigious like Harvard or Yale. I’ve lost myself in discussions with housemates who interpret various aspects of our faith very differently than I do, forcing me to question the tangents of my belief system until I am shaken to my core. I’ve lost myself on the volleyball court, feeling the immense pressure of being the “new kid” and facing the toughest opponents I’ll ever play. I’ve lost myself amongst the towering cathedrals all over England, where the stained glass takes my breath away and I’m reminded of saints past who gave their lives for a faith that I some days fail to give 15 minutes towards. I’ve lost myself poring over letters and packages from my family and friends, pressing my boyfriend’s cologne-soaked flannel to my nose in a desperate attempt to cling to the comforts of home. And, lately, I’ve been losing myself wandering the streets of this stately city, sitting in my favorite cafes, laughing late into the night with friends that have become family, and lying awake in bed for hours, struck by the realization that this place has become my home, and I cannot possibly bring myself to leave.

Because all of the discomfort, the anxiety, the stress, the isolation, this entire process of losing myself amidst cathedral spires and bookshelves and lecture halls: the life-changing nature of studying abroad, while not glitzy or glamorous, has been entirely and utterly worth it.

I still haven’t found myself, yet somehow in the uncertainty of who I am and who I’m supposed to become, I’ve learned to relish in the worth of this experience. I’ve learned to appreciate the small victories—like successfully biking up Headington Hill without puncturing a lung, or turning in an essay that didn’t make me want to light my laptop on fire—without having to obsess over how the big victories would come together. I’ve learned to revel in the time that I’ve been given to explore a new country with a fantastic group of new friends, because while four months seems like a lifetime from the beginning, it has turned out to be a cruelly brief amount of time. And while I don’t know much about the new me—about what it will feel like to return home and attempt to reconcile my new sense of identity with my old places of comfort—I do know some things:

I am an Oxford student. I have survived a full Oxford term. I have travelled the world with some of the greatest people I’ve ever had the privilege to know, and the rest of the greatest people I’ve had the privilege to know are waiting eagerly for my return back home. The God that I have encountered in Europe, the God of the martyrs and reformers, the God who dwells in the hushed light of stained glass during confession and in the soaring praises of an evensong choir, is the same God who I have worshipped for years at my home churches. I may be returning to Pennsylvania to take up my place as a Cairn student—English major, volleyball player, friend, sister, daughter—in a few short weeks, but I will not be returning to Cairn the same person who left four months ago. I’m ready to let the transformation continue.

So yes. Do it. Study abroad. Go to Oxford, or China, or Germany, or Costa Rica, or Washington D.C. You’ll meet new people, learn more than you ever have, find a new level of independence. You’ll experience all the things the glossy brochures tell you.

Just be prepared to have your life transformed in the most terrifying—and miraculous—way imaginable.

And once you sit back and marvel over all of the things you’ve gotten to do, you’ll realize that the late nights and the anxious moments and the gut-twisting knowledge that you don’t know anything will turn out to be the most beautiful moments of your entire existence.

I know these have been the most beautiful moments of mine.

From the City of Dreaming Spires with love,

Whitney