I did not learn everything I need to know in kindergarten. I learned many of life’s important lessons while I was studying and working in London, Tokyo, Nairobi and Vilnius, Lithuania.

Two of my fellow columnists are currently studying abroad in Russia and France, and that is one reason why I am experiencing twinges of prickly jealousy about my situation. They are studying abroad, and I am not.

In my more adult moments, I beat back the unwelcome spasms of jealousy by reminding myself that I already had my chance to study abroad. I was fortunate enough to spend my junior year in London studying theater.

During the summer and on school holidays, I would buy train passes and explore the continent of Europe with friends. I remember taking the Magic Bus from London to Athens, Greece for a mere 100 British pounds or about $160.

Standing on Acropolis Hill and looking at the majestic columns of the Parthenon is something that every student should have the opportunity to experience.

“Second, third and fourth chances should be yours to travel!” my less-than-adult inner child bellows.

In her memoir, “My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile,” Isabel Allende remembers the first time she left Chile as a child. Allende’s mother married a man who worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the entire family accompanied him on their first diplomatic mission to Bolivia.

Allende wrote, “Before I began to travel, I was convinced that all families were like mine, that Chile was the center of the universe, and that every human being looked like us and spoke Spanish as a first language: English and French were school assignments like geometry.”

What Allende wrote about in her memoir has a name. It’s called ethnocentrism.

For students who have never traveled, it is easy to be ethnocentric or under the impression that their particular group, community and country is superior. When students have not had the opportunity to leave their familiar, safe and comfortable life and family in Iowa, it may be difficult for them to imagine that the United States is not the center of the universe.

Before leaving her home in Santiago, Chile and moving to Bolivia, Allende understood the life she lived each day in her own country. She was participating with others in a community where she understood the social rules and the spoken language nearly perfectly. Nobody had to teach her playground etiquette or gender roles because Chile was her country and Santiago, her city.

Allende describes culture shock in her memoir when she writes, “From the moment we left Chile and began to travel from country to country, I became the new girl in the neighborhood, the foreigner at school, the strange one who dressed differently and didn’t even know how to talk like everyone else.”

Until you are that new boy or girl in the neighborhood, you won’t comprehend the feeling of being evaluated and scrutinized by peers who live confidently with social rules that confuse you.

Until you are the foreigner at a new school, you won’t understand the feeling of writing an essay in a new language — a language like Spanish or French that you once viewed as simply a school subject.

Until you are the one who doesn’t know how to talk like everyone else, you may view Sudanese refugees or Mexican immigrants who live in Iowa suspiciously.

Living and studying abroad for Allende, and for you as an ISU student, is an opportunity to leave behind the group, community and country that has sheltered and protected you for so many years. You will leave this security behind in order to become the foreigner, the one who is different. When you return to Iowa, you will be transformed. Allende describes her transformation like this, “Being a foreigner, as I have been almost forever, means that I have to make a much greater effort than the natives, which has kept me on my toes and forced me to become flexible and adapt to different surroundings.”

Stay on your toes and study abroad!