When I first arrived in China, all I could say was “hello.” A year later, on my last day in Beijing, I found myself giving an entire speech in Chinese.

I took a deep breath as I looked out at the familiar faces of nearly two hundred people with whom I had shared the most challenging yet rewarding experience of my life. As I had hoped, my audience laughed and cried along with me. During this moment, like so many before, I realized just how far I had come.

In May 2004, I was on my way to spend a semester abroad in Paris. To pass time on the nine-hour plane ride, my father brought along a deck of Chinese flashcards. He patiently showed me how to use the flashcards to independently study Chinese, and to my great surprise, I was able to learn over sixty characters in less than an hour.

A year later, during my first week of classes in China, my teacher wrote a character up on the chalkboard and I smiled in recognition. The character for “person” was my first friend among many strangers.

During my year in China, I was always eager for every opportunity to speak Chinese. I would strike up conversations with taxi drivers, shopkeepers, waiters, and everybody in between. My Chinese rapidly progressed to the point where I was often mistaken for a native speaker, even though my physical appearance belies that assumption.

But for me, studying abroad was not just about learning a new language: it was an experience defined by learning to live in a radically different part of the world. And I knew this particular learning experience could not be confined to a classroom, no matter where in the world that classroom might be located.