Ryan Domitz

March 29, 2015

ENC 3351H
Dr. Kathleen Bell

Outline
Subject: This anecdotal piece is aimed to excite and inspire UCF students to take advantage of
the study abroad opportunities offered on campus.

Audience: UCF students unfamiliar with the Universitys extensive abroad program, or
students with a travel bug looking for an adventure at an affordable price. Audience must attend
or plans on attending UCF, for the programs described are campus promoted programs. These are
students of any major looking to enrich their college experience.

Genre Rationale: Id like to inspire and motivate my readers into taking the steps towards
traveling abroad as part of a school program. I will use my own experiences to tell a creative
non-fiction narrative of my travels, and elaborate as to what steps I took to make my trip
possible. The point is that anyone can travel abroad.

Visuals: Im going to use photos from my trip abroad to emphasize the thrill of travel and
enhance my story.

Ryan Domitz
3200 N Alafaya Trail, Orlando, 32816
(954)-937-8843

April 1st 2015

Deborah Weaver, Faculty Sponsor
IMPRINT Magazine
4000 Central Florida Blvd,
Orlando, FL 32816

Dear Ms. Weaver,

The University of Central Florida offers dozens of study abroad opportunities, however the
intense limitations put on a student schedule make getting into a program a daunting task. Time
and money are the biggest players keeping students from engaging internationally, and for good
reason. Last summer I was in Germany on a school sponsored program, and came to realize that
time and money were smaller obstacles than they appeared.

My article Buddies Abroad sheds light on how rewarding an experience abroad can be. The
resources provided by the office of international studies ensure that anyone can go abroad during
their college career. Using anecdotes from my own travels I introduce readers to the thrill of
travel. Then I use what I learned as well as the tools provided to me by UCF to illuminate readers
how to overcome obstacles like time and money in order to go abroad.

Enclosed is a manuscript of my article Buddies Abroad. I would like to thank you for your
time and cant wait to hear back from you.

Sincerely,

Ryan Domitz
ryan.domitz@gmail.com
enl: ms
2

Buddies Abroad
It was our first night in Munich, and we decided to explore the city. After over a total of
10 hours on a plane and a sleepless flight plagued by screaming babies, I had arrived in
Germany. I had researched a lot about Munich. It was part of the program where in each city a
few students would take the whole group on a tour. However, despite all the research I was not
prepared for how beautiful the city was. Teeming with fast paced bikers, and close spaced
buildings we strolled along the cobbled streets
looking for a great bar to introduce us to
Deutschland properly. The infamous Hofbrauhaus! A
brewery of legend where Mozart himself would
drink; we gulped down a liter of beer and a few
pretzels before the bill came.

Itinerary:

This
was my
Photo Credit: Ryan
Domitz

moment, for
4 days in Munich
as soon as I
4 days in Tubingen
3 days in Berlin
had been
2 days in Prague
accepted
*Need Euros for Germany and Crowns for Czech Republic into the
study
abroad
program I
decided I
needed to know
some
German before
I went.
From weeks
filled with
covering my
walls and
apartment in vocab post-it notes, I was ready. So when we saw that there was an error on the
check, or rechnung in German, I was quick to act. In a broken German accent I informed the
waiter of his mistake, and looked around to see my fellow abroad travelers to be awestruck.
Wow! Had I really just done that? And whats more was that he understood me, despite my
shoddy attempts at speaking his native language. The thrill rushed towards me, and I was in love
with this new country.
But I learned a lot more than just German. The country had all these subtle nuances that
really made it a foreign land. You had to pay to use the bathrooms almost everywhere, the
citizens appeared nearly uniformly bilingual (speaking German as a courtesy more than
anything) and an independence from air conditioning despite Germanys high economical

standing. On the trip, I made some great friends and had opportunities to get to know everyone in
my group on a personal level. Whats more, is I was only there for two weeks!
I feel it impossible to describe what someone can
learn from going abroad, and Im sure its a new
experience each time. So why dont more people take
advantage of these life experiences that the university
offer so freely? Well it seems rather obvious: time and
money. Too few of us have too little of both. But
those are simple obstacles to overcome with the
ample resources the University of Central Florida has
to offer.
There are two main types of UCF sponsored programs for students looking for
international experiences. There are the short term programs and exchange programs. At the
time, I was a bio-med major with a heavy course schedule and no time to go abroad for a whole
semester because there wasnt a program that would help me in my major. I just didnt have a
Credit:
semesterPhoto
to blow,
and asRyan
a full time student with no source of income, money was also an
obstacle. Thats where the distinction between the two programs came in. For certain majors like
business or language, foreign travel is sometimes compulsory. An exchange program swaps
shoes with you and a student from your destinations country, usually for at least a semester. The
semester long exchange is what really stopped me from going, but short term programs are more
lenient for all schedules. They are generally less demanding and place less restrictions on credit
or major requirements. So to squeeze in my trip, I took a summer A class and for the B portion I
was going to Germany! Moreover the trip was open to all majors, which was a relief to me, a
science major (less programs abroad than art, language, journalism, and business departments
offer.)
Next there was the issue of money. But UCF, as well as the Burnett Honors College offer
a plethora of scholarships that students can take advantage of. I pooled together my resources
and was able to scrape the funds up with my UCF Pegasus Scholarship. . Among the 11 of us on
my trip, many had received some sort of financial backing through scholarships or prioritizing
how they save their money. Including the flight and trip I spent just under 3,000 dollars, a
bargain for a trip to such an affluent country. Other students on our trip used websites like
Gofundme.com to receive donations for their trip, and the abroad department itself offered
scholarships in the form of an essay contest. On their site alone, (study abroad scholarships) UCF
offers dozens of scholarships with details on the prerequisites required and how to apply.
So as far as time and money are concerned UCFs study abroad department offers various
avenues to overcome the common obstacles in the way of a student looking to travel. For me, it
started with an application and an interview. Once I had been accepted and had begun going

through the steps to taking the trip, I realized how easy it was to embark on this epic trip, and I
knew Id come back a changed man.
One of the most memorable experiences of the trip was in Berlin. The night of the soccer
world cup finals, I had spent in a bar watching as Germanys team crushed Argentina. At the end
of the match I made my way outside into total chaos. The wide open plazas of Germanys capital
were teeming with overzealous fans as they waved their flags and honked their horns in
celebration. I watched as excited Germans rocked cars and set off fireworks late in the night. It
was pure bliss as I strolled the streets amidst the cacophony of celebration and mirth. My face
covered in red black and gold war paint, my feet tired from the days of long walking, and my
arsenal of brand new stories to cherish for the rest of my life, I would encourage anyone to take
full advantage of the wonderful opportunities UCFs study abroad department offers.

Photo Credit: Ryan

Word count: 1045

Links: https://studyabroad.ucf.edu/index.cfm?
FuseAction=Abroad.ViewLink&Parent_ID=218EB7B7-A94F-8755E62E2E9AAE888670&Link_ID=22908872-DB40-1771-8A2CD16883E03E28