Erin Stephenson, Genomics & Precision Medicine in England, Summer 2026
Travel companions are a different category of friend and require a different level of trust. The closeness developed when living with people abroad is unlike any other relationship. It forms when things go wrong, when plans go awry, and when you can’t figure out what tube station to get off at. Even more than that, those friendships are born in the moments when you’re seeing the most beautiful city skyline at dusk on a warm spring night right next to people you met a few weeks ago. It’s hard to replicate that feeling.
This is actually what surprised me the most. So far, my impressions of people I meet at Pitt haven’t always been positive. This was a shock at first, and acclimatizing to college life was difficult for a while. My life here has definitely improved over the years, but finding likeminded people remains a challenge. So, when I realized that my study abroad trip to England was full of intelligent, funny, and multifaceted women, peers and professors alike, I was relieved. It could just be forced proximity, or that I associate those people with happy memories. Either way, the people I met on this trip made every part of it better. I wouldn’t have wanted to see Big Ben for the first time with anyone else, which isn’t something I expected to say afterward. That was one of my favorite memories of the trip, and the people I was there with that night are half of it.
Travel isn’t the same as vacationing. You have to work to reap the benefits, problem solve on the spot and learn along the way. I wouldn’t have made it to Big Ben without my peers, and it wouldn’t have been the same without them. We weren’t all the same major, and we didn’t all want the same things in our future. But we were able to come together and exist in the moment for the whole trip, which pushed me to soak everything in while I was living it. Daily life abroad isn’t supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be educational and rewarding, and that’s exactly how it was for me. Memories of sitting on the train in excitement as we awaited our destination, be it London, Nottingham, or Edinburgh, were
some of the best times of it all. Being consistently challenged to plan day trips, scouting out travel methods, and finding unique restaurants added a new type of enjoyment to my time. Every day was rewarding; I never knew what interesting new sights I would see. To any future student abroad students, I could encourage them to embrace this aspect of their trip: to lean into the unpredictability of travel and spend the time with the new friends they make along the way.
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