Keeping My Hobbies Alive Overseas

Not everything about going abroad has to be brand new. Some things can still feel like home. For me, the biggest example is dance, something I have done for as long as I can remember. I danced competitively from ages 9 to 18, and currently minor in dance at USC. For this week, I wanted to write about how dance has kept me grounded for my first few weeks in Milan.

When I was narrowing down my schools roughly a year ago for the IB requirements, I was pretty certain that none of them were going to offer dance classes for credit. Even though I didn’t mention dance in my essays (oops!), I wanted to make sure that wherever I ended up had a decent dance scene outside of the classroom. This led to an Instagram and Google Maps rabbit hole and me finding Area Dance.

Me after class this past Saturday!

My first time at Area was my third day in Milan. Was I jet-lagged? Yes. Did I have to take a pause to figure out the Metro ticket system? Also yes. Are the classes in English? Of course not! Was I a bit nervous going into this kind of environment? Well, yes and no.

I’ve been in this situation before. When I was on the Business In Japan Maymester last spring, I had some downtime in Nagoya. To recharge my social battery, I decided to take a dance class while I was there. The instructor didn’t speak a word of English and I had to pay through broken Japanese and Google Translate. I still had a blast and knew what was going on, so I wasn’t worried about picking up choreography for open classes.

May 2025: This was my first time taking a dance class in another country (Nagoya, Japan)

As for Area, this proved to be about the same, just with a little bit less of a language barrier. The only real difference is this is where I’m dancing for the next few months of my life. Some of these people will actually get to know me both as a dancer and a person. Here’s the thing about dance though. You don’t need to know a certain language to take a class. Most instructors I’ve had so far had no idea that I barely knew Italian until it was brought up later in class.

From a recent jazz class

I’ve made time for dance weekly so far. My university schedule changes sometimes and it works in my favor for dance. I honestly like being outside the university bubble for a part of my week and it’s a nice reset for me. If you have something that you enjoy doing that isn’t necessarily academic, try it abroad. For me, dancing here has helped me connect more with the art and given me a new perspective on dance in general. Like a lot of things abroad, it was intimidating at first, but absolutely worth it.

I have LOVED my time here <3333

That’s all from me this week! If you’re reading this and have anything in particular you’d like to read about my time abroad, definitely reach out at jordanlt@email.sc.edu! And a little spoiler for next week: it may include a lot more Gamecocks : )