One year on from Geneva

On the 17th January 2025, I awoke with a spring in my step. It was the day of my flight home from Geneva, for the final time. I was more than happy to be leaving it behind after enduring a horrific few months over there.

I knew I wanted to pursue languages from the age of about 14. While applying for uni courses in my last year of college, the compulsory year abroad with a language degree was the one aspect I wasn’t so keen on. I suppose it’s ironic as a lot of people tell me they’d love to study abroad, but I wasn’t mad about the idea. I love to travel, but spending a few days away is different from moving somewhere completely new.

The year abroad felt like a distant thought when I started uni — as if it would never come. It was only a year later, when I started second year, when I had to seriously consider it. The decision felt intuitive; the University of Geneva had a special translation and interpreting school. I was one of two from my cohort who wanted to go to Geneva, while many were fighting for a place to study in Bordeaux. This meant that I easily secured a place, but I still didn’t feel very prepared.

The host uni told us that they prioritise international students when offering accommodation, which put my mind at rest. That was until I still hadn’t heard anything from them four months after applying. They then told me in July that I was more than #1000 on the waiting list, so I began to panic. In the end, I stayed with a family that a fellow Lancaster student had stayed with a few years prior. I thought that as somebody else had previously stayed with them, it couldn’t be so bad.

Although I was grateful that I’d resolved the accommodation issue, I was still unenthusiastic about the whole thing. Countless people had emphasised that it’d be “the best experience of my life”, which frankly didn’t reassure me a whole lot. I knew the only way I could avoid it was either by switching my course or dropping out of uni, neither of which I particularly wanted, so I reminded myself that it was all in aid of my degree.

I spent the days preceding the flight full of worry; I didn’t want to leave behind everything I knew. Though there was a piece of wisdom I had which would always stay with me: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Even if it did turn out as bad as I was imagining, I was settled by the knowledge that it would ultimately be a form of character-building and make me more resilient.

The first few days were quite enjoyable. The first night was spent having dinner with my host family. They seemed quite pleasant, and they lived in a small, picturesque village on the outskirts of Geneva. I had arrived just in time for Welcome Week, meaning the first week of my stay was chock-full of events and parties for meeting other Erasmus students.

Although I’d met countless people from all over the world, once I’d settled into the routine of classes, I realised that most of these people weren’t really my ‘friends’. There was nothing wrong with them — that’s not what I’m saying — but I was confronted by the fact that a tipsy conversation with a near-stranger is no real connection. This realisation made me feel very isolated. I’d made a couple of friends from my course, but I felt like I wasn’t having the classic ‘year abroad experience’.

I had been warned that these feelings are common, so I didn’t want to let this stop me. I was also aware of the fact that connections can take longer than a few short weeks. With this in mind, I booked a trip to Lucerne with the Erasmus Student Network so I could have chance to experience another part of Switzerland.

I remember it as a horrible, horrible day, and one which I’d mark as the beginning of my downward spiral. I felt excluded the entire time because it seemed that everyone had already formed their own groups, and I was just an outsider. We spent two, if not three, hours in the Transport Museum, which I probably would have liked if I was at all interested in transport, but I instead sat and cried in the café. To make it even better, it rained the entire day, making it appear overwhelmingly bleak.

I became an anxious mess after the trip, to put it lightly. It’s difficult to explain, since it went so much deeper than feeling as if I had no friends. It made me feel as if everything in my life was going wrong because everyone told me how fun it would be, remember? To add onto that, my ‘pleasant host family’ gradually became more and more unpleasant. This meant I felt very uncomfortable in what should have been my temporary safe space.

As I said earlier, I didn’t want to let this stop me. To combat the fact I hated being at ‘home’, I booked a few trips away. One of my first posts on here was about my trip to Lyon, which was the first time I’d ever been on a solo trip (if you exclude the entirety of Switzerland as a solo trip). I also went to Bern, Milan, as well as different landmarks and museums in Geneva. I still wouldn’t say it made me feel happy inside, but I’m proud to retrospectively say that I tried to have a good time.

There’s a group I came across called GoSocial Switzerland, with whom I went on a few nights out. On one of these nights, I made a Turkish friend called Bora who studies in Lausanne, and we’re still in touch. Although we met towards the end of my stay, I’m glad that our paths crossed because he gave me experiences that make me view Switzerland (slightly) positively. He’s currently trying to get a visa for the UK, so I hope we’re reunited at some point.

Christmas soon approached, but I didn’t feel particularly excited about it because of how unhappy I was. After our last class, everyone was thrilled about leaving, but I burst into tears because I thought that I’d ‘ruined my own happiness’ and I was ‘never going to be happy again’. The girls from my class gave me a hug and reassured me it would get better. It didn’t feel like much consolation at the time, but they did prove to be right.

The University of Geneva had silly logic for international students, because I had to go back in January for exams despite not staying for two semesters. After a relaxing Christmas period with my family, I was dreading the return, but I luckily had a much nicer experience the second time. I’d originally planned to stay with the same not-so-pleasant family, but they told me in my last week before Christmas that their son needed his (my) bedroom back. They told me I could stay in the games room, but I wasn’t going back to that hellhole. I instead stayed in an AirBnB which was much more expensive, but this host was much kinder than the first one. I had chalked my host family’s abrasiveness down to cultural difference, but considering how my second host was, I think the family were just dickheads.

A few days before leaving, I went to Lausanne for another night out with GoSocial. There was a guy who lived in Geneva who had kindly offered me a lift home, but he ended up staying in Lausanne. I hadn’t bought a return train ticket for this reason, so I risked the journey home sans billet. Imagine the horror on my face when the absolute jobsworth of a train conductor checks my ticket at 2 in the morning. The following day, I threw the fine in the bin because I knew I was not intending to return to Switzerland. This was my last act of defiance.

That brings us back to the first paragraph: on the 17th January 2025, I awoke with a spring in my step. The experience tested me in countless ways, but I survived it. I’m even now at the point where I reminisce on some parts, (like an amazing gelato shop near uni called Gelato Mania) but I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t go back. I wish I’d enjoyed it more, but it’s easier to say that with the gift of hindsight. I wasn’t as old or wise back then, and it was a completely new experience, so all I can do is be proud of little me for getting through it.

Once I’d gotten into the groove of being at home, I had to prepare to uproot my life for the second time to study in Graz, Austria. Then, I sat down and thought, “why am I doing this again?” I was fairly confident that I would have enjoyed Graz more than Geneva, but I wasn’t in the right headspace to go. My uni were very obtuse about my decision, telling me I was no longer allowed to study German.

I think it was all a blessing in disguise, though: I only have to dedicate time to learning one language in my final year. It’s also taught me to fall in love with academia, since I now have to do more cultural modules than if I was studying two languages. I’m considering picking it up again when I do my Masters in Translation, where I wouldn’t have to actively speak the language, the skill in which I always had the least confidence.

To be brutally honest, I’d say that my experience in Geneva was worse than my anxiety was predicting. You’re probably not used to hearing that since we normally get told that “it won’t be as bad as you think”, and while I still agree that this is correct 99.9% of the time, I’m not going to sugar-coat my experience one bit.

When I first got back from Geneva, and my head was still all over the place, I thought that ‘my head was permanently messed up’ and I was ‘never going to be the same person I was before’. The first one is definitely wrong, because I’d argue that I’m now happier than before because I appreciate the UK more. I’ve finally come to the terms with the fact that there will always be a little voice in my head that likes to feed me negative thoughts and predict worst-case scenarios, but it doesn’t mean I can’t live a fulfilling life anyway.

However, the second belief I had was true: I’m never going to be the same person I was before I went on my year abroad. This doesn’t have to be a negative thing, and I’d actually say that it’s brought more good than bad. I’ve become a more driven and motivated person through the bad experience that life presented me with; it gave me a new ‘lease of life’ to perform as best as I can in my degree. It also pushed me to explore therapy that I probably needed even pre-Geneva, so I now have the self-awareness to know that even if I’m not productive 100% of the time, I have inherent worth. That’s just one of many things I’ve learnt in the past year.

Another key thing I learnt, and perhaps the most important one, is that intelligence doesn’t equate to being able to thrive in every possible situation without issues. I’ve always held myself to a high standard because I’m academically inclined, while forgetting that I am allowed to find things challenging. I was originally surprised and disappointed by the fact I ‘couldn’t handle’ my semester abroad, but I know that I’m still a person with value, and that I came out stronger for it.