Studying Abroad

My latest situation that I need help on is whether or not to study abroad next semester. If I made a pro and con list, I know the con list would be longer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the better choice, mainly for the fact that I’d be going to LONDON. That’s right, London, ENGLAND. For those of you who don’t know me very well, I have never been out of the country before. And the number one place I’ve always wanted to go to is London. My family lived there for 6 months before I was born, so I’ve always felt like I need to see it. There are a few reasons why I’m having such trouble deciding. The first one would have to do with how easily I can get homesick. Everyone knows I went to the University of Iowa my freshman year, and quickly decided that it was not the place for me and I needed to come home. After living at home for a full year, I am now living in the dorms at UIC and I am not homesick at all, mind you I am only 45 minutes away from my house. Now if I were to study abroad, I can’t just fly back and forth whenever I want. I would never be going home, until the semester is over of course. Also, there’s the whole money issue since I’d be using loans to pay for all of this. And because my math major has absolutely nothing to do with London, I wouldn’t be taking any major courses and would have to do summer school at UIC next summer, which is just more money and more commuting. You can already see that there are more cons than pros, but going to London for 4 months pretty much outweighs all of those cons. Alternatively, I could go there during the summer for 6 weeks instead of a whole semester. That would be saving money and lowering the chance of me being very homesick. But that also means less time in London, which means less time in Europe. I don’t only want to see London, I want to see France, Spain, Italy, Greece, basically anywhere you can think of (I’ve never been anywhere, people). I don’t think 6 weeks is long enough to do everything I want to do. And one of my very good friends from high school is studying abroad next semester, so I would have her there, where as in the summer, I won’t know anybody. It’s a lot to think about, and I have very little time to do it, so any comments would be greatly appreciated

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