DIS Copenhagen is a semester-long study abroad program in Copenhagen, Denmark. At DIS, I was in the Urban Studies program, and spent time, studying, traveling, and meeting new people.
There is nothing quite like studying abroad. It made me realize just how small my bubble was. Everyone is familiar with the saying “step out of your comfort zone,” but I never truly understood that until I tried grocery shopping in Danish or ordering food in a restaurant in Germany or asking for directions in Prague. My view of the world is much different now. One of the things that struck me the most was how truly uncultured I am. I seriously struggled when people didn’t speak English in the places I traveled to, and I’ve never felt more uncomfortable not knowing any other languages. Studying abroad really does open your eyes. In a more professional context, studying planning in Europe allowed me to see how planning functions in other countries and find what fit the pattern and what broke the mold.
As I alluded to before, many of my most transformational experiences had to do with language barriers. The first time I went grocery shopping in Copenhagen was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. All the prices were in kroner, so I was trying to divide by 6, and all the text was in Danish, so I had no idea what to buy. Then I went to check out, and the cashier asked me something in Danish, and I panicked. I’ve never said: “sorry?” as frequently as I did in Europe. Another transformational experience was arguably the funniest meal I’ve ever eaten, at a restaurant called Erica’s Eck in Hamburg, Germany. Between our waitress not knowing any English, us not knowing any German, trying not to kill the person with a fish and nut allergy, having to order through the Ghanian man who worked in the kitchen, and accidentally ordering the wrong meal, it was honestly a meal I’ll never forget.
Prior to my time abroad, I’d only been to Canada a few times to visit my sister and brother-in-law, and to London for about 72 hours. While I was abroad, I visited 12 countries: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, The Czech Republic, and Greece. With each trip, I experienced new languages and cultures and food and climates and it was fascinating, especially for a city nerd like me.
It’s amazing how quickly you get to know people when you go abroad and know no one. My housemates and classmates from DIS Copenhagen are now some of my closest friends, travel buddies, and planning nerds, and I am so glad I met them. Oftentimes at Ohio State, you stay in your bubble with your friends who are just like you and you don’t experience different viewpoints. At Ohio State, a lot of my friends are also from Ohio, with a lot of the same political and social views. At DIS, I met people from California to Connecticut, on all sides of the political and social spectrum, and it was an amazing way to diversify my view of the world.
Planning is all about the people. You can’t (or at least, shouldn’t) plan for a city until you understand the people that live there. You have to get to know the politics and social organization and economic processes and government structure before you can even begin to understand what those that live there need. In living abroad for four months, I began to see beyond the veil of tourism (especially in Copenhagen). I began to truly understand how Danish society works, and in what ways it doesn’t. You can learn a lot about people even if you can’t understand what they’re saying.
I also learned a lot about planning practices that I intend to take with me wherever I end up in the field. At Ohio State, and in the United States in general, planners tend to repeat the same dialogue on repeat until the day they die. Seeing how planning functions on a different continent is a great way to break the mold and find new insights into the field.
If you’d like to see more about my experience through DIS Copenhagen, check out my blog, Walking Through Cities (https://walkingthroughcities.wordpress.com/)!