Don’t go on Erasmus.

Don’t even think about moving to another country, making the effort to understand its laws, customs, taboos, and jokes. Don’t celebrate foreign holidays, don’t try unfamiliar food, don’t dance to rhythms you’ve never heard before, don’t sing lyrics you don’t understand.

Don’t speak in any language other than your own. You won’t enjoy feeling out of place, misunderstood, isolated, or ignored.

Don’t make friends from other cultures. Avoid awkward conversations with people whose references you don’t share, where the context escapes you and the nuances of speech confuse you. Don’t seek kindness or affection beyond your borders.

Don’t enroll in universities abroad, where the education system is completely different, where classes are taught in a language that isn’t your own, where the rules don’t match those of your country, and where professors are treated in ways you’re not used to.

Don’t apply for jobs abroad. You won’t like the rejection for not being local, the unanswered résumés, the discomfort of job interviews in another language. You’ll feel the frustration of knowing you’d get the job back home—but not here.

Don’t even try to deal with bureaucracy in another country, learning about their forms, their queues, their government offices.

Don’t get sick while abroad. You won’t want to explain your symptoms to doctors and nurses in a language that’s not yours, to people who share little or nothing with you but who, inexplicably, want to help.

Don’t emigrate. Don’t apply for visas. Don’t endure the uncertainty and fear of immigration lines and foreign paperwork.

Don’t fall in love with someone from another country. Don’t share bilingual jokes only the two of you understand. Don’t explain your traditions to each other. Don’t discover that love knows no borders.

Stay home, with your family, your lifelong friends. Don’t change your habits, your way of thinking, your understanding of the world, your perception of reality.

Keep going to the same bars, keep having Sunday lunch at your parents’ house, keep dating within your circle. Finish your degree with the same classmates you started with, work in the job you had planned, stay in your city—your neighborhood, if possible.

Don’t take any risks.
Don’t go on Erasmus.
It might just be the best thing that ever happens to you.