Travel to Learn

“Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.” – The Prophet Mohammed

Though my imagination is known to run as wild as the zebras on the African plains, it is inconceivable to ever substitute the experience and learning that comes with travelling to a place. It is my considered view that travelling exposes you to a diversity of activities and situations in an entirely different environment, affecting how you perceive and understand the world. It makes you more compassionate, open-minded and understanding of life with all its adversities.

Travelling creates a more aware global citizen. Today, in a time of rapid globalization, in which the boundaries of countries and continents are blurred by advancing technology and improved mobilization and communication, those who strive for excellence in their respective domains need to recognize the value of these skills and seek them out by increasing their education through a broader international experience. Being aware of the changes that are happening around you and adapting to those changes is what will provide you the edge you need in our global society.

Life is intrinsic, life is practical, but most of our book-gained knowledge is theoretical and therefore, practical knowledge becomes a prerequisite to equip one’s self for the endeavour of life. This practical cognition is gained from the empirical knowledge of the outside world. We learn from personal observation and experience much more than we learn from books. Real life does not always move according to the literary ordinance of novelists and authors.Studying abroad will enhance your creativity, build your intellectual curiosity and your analytical ability to rationalize and comprehend in a new environment; it will give you the self-confidence to take decisions in difficult situations and be responsible for them; it will enhance your vision for larger growth and welfare of people at large as well as understanding and working efficiently with people from all walks of life with different backgrounds diverse cultures.

As a result of this, you will home return home with a new sense of fulfilment, both personally and intellectually with a deeper understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. These new found skills will provide you with the capacity to be increasingly more independent and assertive.When we travel we lose ourselves in a new surrounding amongst new people, different cultures, languages and ethnicity but we then ultimately find ourselves. Besides better understanding of the world it also helps us to sort of break out of the sheltered cocoon that we’ve lived in so far and metamorphose into a global citizen with a new sense of the world. The travelling experience has no substitute in words in books or videos on YouTube no matter how vicarious when you travel yourself you learn about yourself and about the world around you through your own eyes.

Travelling gives us a new perspective and deeper understanding  and teaches us lessons that don’t fade away with memories or photographs but the experiences add to us as human beings having experienced  these in our own unique and personal way. If I had not had the good fortune to travel to a number of countries, I wouldn’t know better than want to pursue my higher education in my country and get a job here, but because of my travels which helped me broaden my horizons and see that I have so many more options I finally made my up mind – I want to go to America for university.

Mark Twain once said “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Nanki Singh is a Class 10 student at Modern School, Vasant Vihar, in New Delhi. She loves reading, writing, and photography, and holds a Senior Diploma in Indian Classical Vocal Music. She’s also a swimmer and a track & field athlete in her spare time.