Imagine leaving your friends, family, and everything you’ve known your entire life, to go live 3,000 miles in a place where no one knows you or speaks your language, and even the things you thought you knew how to do, like pay a bill at a restaurant, are fraught with uncomfortable surprises.

That’s what Carolina did. She’d been planning to become a foreign exchange student as long as she can remember, “for the adventure.”

Some people might be content with a road trip a bit closer to home. But not Carolina.

She was a little nervous, she admits, but says for the wrong reasons:

“ I thought that people were going to be meaner,” she says. “And when I got here everyone was so friendly, I was surprised. I was like: ‘Why are strangers smiling to me on the street?’”

What she didn’t anticipate was a strong urge to fit in. Talking to people when she first got to Boston last August made her heart beat fast. She was worried, especially in class at Boston College where she is one of some 200 exchange students feathered into a student body of more than 14,400, that she’d say the wrong thing and people would give her blank stares or - worse - not be able to understand what she was trying to say.

But after a while, and weathering a couple embarrassing moments (“I didn’t know people tip how they do here, that was uncomfortable”) Carolina settled into her new life, and embraced her (surprisingly slight) accent. It brings out a different sound and perspective, she says.

Eight months have taught her a lot about herself, how she reacts to new situations and having much more alone time than she did at home in Quito, Ecuador, has surprised her. On a whim one day she bought some water colors and discovered she loved painting and that has opened her up to include the possibility of visual arts being part of her future.

“I guess that being uncomfortable is not always terrible,” she says. “It does feel weird and gets sad sometimes, but I think it’s worth it, getting to know the world and yourself.”

Carolina says she read a lot of advice about how her year in the US might go, but she says there’s no substitute for just taking the leap and going abroad. Go, she says. “You’ll discover things that no one will tell you.”