Study Abroad and College Ultimate: Benefits and Downsides

I was supposed to leave for Germany last week to visit some relatives before beginning my study abroad program, but I was diagnosed with mono the day before my plane was set to leave, so I'm hanging out in the U.S. for two more weeks and recovering some strength before leaving to begin a semester of study in Freiburg, Germany. Being ill for the past three weeks has stopped any writing I had planned, but I feel better these days, and so I thought I'd write a little bit about studying abroad and how it relates to ultimate.

I will be leaving behind my small, beloved college ultimate team in the capable hands of two captains, and I trust they will have an exciting season, maybe the last season in the UPA without divisional play. Once I am allowed to run again without fear of my spleen exploding, I am hopefully going to be playing with an apparently well-established mixed team based out of Freiburg. I know nothing about ultimate in Germany, and I hope I’ll meet some cool people, learn some new things, and be able to go to some tournaments with them. If not, hopefully I can meet people who will be willing to toss a disc with me sometimes. If my ultimate plans fall through, maybe I can return to a sport I played way back in middle school that I hear is kind of popular in Europe…I think they call it Fußball.

If nothing else, I hope to use this chunk of time away from the academic rigors of my home school and away from college ultimate as a time to get in good shape. Before I got sick I was weightlifting regularly here at home, snowbound, but once I return to grass and hopefully have some type of track facility available, I intend to develop some type of sprint routine. Mono might put a dent in these plans, but hopefully not too much, we'll see how that goes. So there might be some future posts about working out, and I’d welcome any advice or links you have about fitness. This is assuming I can withstand the temptation of three things the Germans know how to make that I love: chocolate, bread, and beer.

Anyways, I will be abroad until the middle of August. This means for the first time in three years I will not be playing in a summer league, which makes me sad, because summer league was how I was first introduced to real ultimate and it has always been a great way to make friends within whatever local ultimate community I spent my summer.

And, of course, part of me feels bad for leaving during the spring, the time of the college series. The four other juniors on my team are also going abroad, taking away much of the experience on our team. The current sophomores are returning the favor in the fall of this year—all ten (or more?! more keep joining the team) of them, I believe, are leaving for areas as diverse as Morocco, India, and Israel. I wouldn’t have it any other way, of course—I think study abroad is a worthwhile experience, and I wouldn’t want anyone not to leave because of ultimate. Is this the attitude you can’t have if you want to go to nationals? Maybe. Is study abroad more popular at smaller schools? I’m not sure. My gut reaction would be yes. Half of the juniors at my school study abroad, and in literature I got from others like mine (small, liberal arts schools), they all advertised their high rates of study abroad. Does this disrupt the ultimate season? Undoubtedly. Is the disruption bigger at smaller schools, where a higher percentage of students study abroad? Possibly. Even studying abroad in the fall, which sometimes isn't an option because of how classes work out at home and how the semester works abroad (this is the case for me), disrupts a lot of team-building and training, especially in places that can't go back to outdoor practice right away in the winter and early spring.

There was never any pressure on my team to not study abroad, and I would feel very uncomfortable putting pressure on anyone to sacrifice a chance to study abroad for the ultimate season. If I were on the A-team roster of a top college ultimate team I'm sure I would reconsider my decision to leave in the spring, and I imagine there would be pressure not go to. I have no idea how top teams handle that, except I imagine most players would choose to stay and compete and sacrifice a chance to study abroad, because, after all, they already sacrifice a lot of time and money to be at the top. I don't want to presume too much about how that works on top teams, however, so I'll stick to what I know...

...Because I'm not on an A-team roster on a top college team, so I don't have to feel too guilty, and I think if you choose to study abroad, you can continue your ultimate education overseas. Almost everyone I know on the team who has studied abroad (and on my team, that would be most woman I've known) found some type of ultimate wherever they were, whether it was less established programs, like in Chile, and or very established programs, like in Australia. Some of my friends got to go to prestigious tournaments like Paganello and some got to play in big tournaments in the Australian series, for example. They came back with cool jerseys and discs and awesome stories and maybe a better understanding of how ultimate is growing in other parts of the world.

Also, maybe having a lot of experience on the team leave for a semester isn't all bad for the team. Certainly having the entire junior class go abroad in one semester isn't ideal, and in most years it is more balanced in terms of who leaves when, but my hope for the team this spring is that underclassmen get to step up into roles left by juniors and become better players themselves. The seniors are still there to steer the ship, to to speak, but sophomores and first years get more playing time and experience and grow into better players, though it may be a difficult and at times frustrating road. This frustration may not pay off in this season, either, but in the future.

So, there are benefits and disadvantages of studying abroad, with most of the benefits going to individual players, but as I outlined above, I think the case can be made that sometimes having players study abroad can be better for the team as a whole, at least thinking in the long term.

Well, there's a "small" post for you on Bagel Fodder for once, ha ha. I wanted to give thanks for the recent press on Banana Cut and the link from Mackey's blog for my long piece about the fall season. Look for another post or two before I leave, hopefully.