by STAFF WRITER | Feb 1st, 2024

By one of the thirty women you know who just got back from their semester in Europe 

Last semester, I studied abroad in [insert bougie country here], and here are some things I absolutely did not miss about Bowdoin:

• The shockingly dry chicken at the dining halls 
• Paying $7.89 for a head of lettuce at Hannaford if I decide to cook at home 
• Opening Grubhub and getting two options (that being Watami and… no that’s actually it, right?)
• Getting catcalled by the teenagers of the Brunswick High School in their dad’s pick up truck while I’m walking down South street
• Seeing NARPs wearing shorts in 20 degree weather. Bonus points if it’s a man on the swim team with shaven legs.
• Getting kicked out of an HL study room at 7pm by a math major who claims to have reserved it for the next 5 hours 
• Bowdoin computer updates every other day
• The Orient 
• Walking into class and seeing that one guy who speaks exactly like ChatGPT would if it was a real person, or that one girl who raises her hand to answer every question with random buzzwords she learned on TikTok
• Dropping a class because I’m too dumb for it, then joining a new one only to learn that the professor is the “king of cold calls”
• Ripping Celsius to the point where I feel like I’ve just smoked crack, but really I just have a pile of homework bigger than the average econ professor’s ego
• Mud season
• Long line at the mail center
• Getting yelled at in the mail center to have my student ID ready when it’s literally in my hand
• Finally getting a biweekly paycheck from working a student job on campus only for it to be like $80
• Working so hard on an assignment just to get a B- 

There are, however, some things I did actually miss about Bowdoin:

• Once, I saw a 65 year old man at the beach wearing nothing but a thong, and I just feel like that would never happen at Bowdoin. I didn’t even study abroad in France. 
• Wearing sweatpants wherever I want while still remaining a part of the norm
• Cheap drinks at Thursday night Bolos 
• The Harpoon