PackAbroad Ambassador Allie Denton

Hello Wolfpack! My name is Allie Denton. I am currently a junior at NC State studying Biological Sciences concentrating in Integrative Physiology and Neurobiology. My college career has looked a little bit different than the average student. I was finishing up my Senior year in high school and eager to jump right into college. When I got my acceptance letter from NCSU. I was accepted into NC State University Spring semester of 2019. This was one semester after I was expecting to join college. I started doing research on what I could do during the semester of Fall 2018. This was when I found out about the Prague Study Abroad program. This program was offered to students just like me who were accepted to NCSU in the spring semester. I was extremely interested in this opportunity so I did more research and ended up deciding that studying abroad my first semester in college was an amazing opportunity and I had to take advantage of it.

I applied and was accepted into the program a little while later. I spent all summer before planning what to pack, researching other countries I could visit, and learning about my new home of Prague, Czechia. We had a few info sessions beforehand to learn about where we were staying and our class schedule. For this program the classes we took were chosen for us. The classes were Czech language and culture, Astronomy, Sociology, and Philosophy.

When time came that I arrived in Prague I only knew one other girl in the program with me. There were 28 underclassmen studying abroad, including myself. We were all very eager to meet each other since we were going to be roommates, classmates, and best friends for the next 3 months. The night we all arrived there was a scheduled dinner at Hamburg (which was going to become our new favorite hangout spot) and we all got to know each other there. That first day was the beginning of friendships/relationships that I still have to this day. 

Studying abroad was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I made so many good memories and best friends. I was able to travel to 7 different cities in 6 different countries with the friends that I had made while there. Looking back, I was scared to leave home for a foreign country with people I had never met, but I was more upset that I had to leave Prague and my new family after the 3 months were up.