Report: 9/10 Study Abroad Students Won't Shut the Fuck Up About Studying Abroad

A recent investigation showed that over 90% of Penn study abroad students talk about their traveling experiences for “overwhelmingly large amounts of time” in everyday conversations. Sociology professor John Phillips and his team of PhD candidates conducted the study on over 200 students who went abroad during this past fall semester.

According to Phillips, the aim of the project was to “either confirm or deny the stereotype that study abroad students will ramble about their experiences for extensive periods of time.” The findings, he says, were astounding. “We were shocked by how much our participants shared to our research time about their time overseas,” Phillips stated in an interview. “The first student we interviewed spoke for over an hour and a half about his fall in London, completely uninterrupted. We didn’t even have a chance to ask him any questions.”

The team found that the average length of uninterrupted speech by study abroad students was approximately an hour and three minutes. Research assistant and PhD candidate Delaney Wu reported that many students also started blogs during their times abroad. Almost all students, however, uploaded at least “three or more black-and-white photos of European cafés or pictures of children from impoverished regions.”

A recent study abroad student expressed her lack of surprise at the investigation’s results. “Taking a semester overseas was an incredible experience,” she stated in an interview. “I think that everybody should go abroad, and the study shows that. Everyone loves traveling. Going to Sweden was the best decision I’ve ever made, and the second best was spending my entire savings on spontaneous trips to expensive parts of Europe.”

Junior Edward Garcia also found the results unsurprising, but did not view them with the same enthusiasm. “I’ve never been abroad, but my current roommate went to Spain last spring semester,” the Wharton student said. “I’ve been hearing him talk about Madrid almost every day for the past 4 months. Am I glad that he’s happy? Absolutely. Do I want to hear about one of his many one-night stands in Europe for the millionth time? Fuck no.”