Studying Abroad Four Times (yes, four times) with Ben Beatty

Studying Abroad Four Times (yes, four times) with Ben Beatty

Take your time. There is absolutely no downside and really only upside.” — Dr. Ben Beatty

I have known Ben Beatty since I was in the sixth grade. We’ve had our share of adventures all over the world and I thought he’d be a perfect guest to have on the podcast. As an undergrad, Dr. Beatty took studying abroad to a whole new level:

  • Dominican Republic
  • Puerto Rico
  • Spain
  • Mexico (I didn’t even know about this one)

That’s not a fabrication. If you’re on the edge about studying abroad once, try listening to someone who has done it four times. As you could probably guess, Ben is fluent in Spanish. So if you’re interested in learning a new language while abroad – this interview is definitely for you.

We talk about how Ben built a unique resume starting right after his freshman year of college, a Chicago adventure, and a near death experience. Oh boy.

Quote Ben would like to leave you with:

Only make moves if your hearts’ in it, the sky’s the limit. — Biggie Smalls

Show Notes:

Where to live if you’re looking to learn a new language [5:10]

Madrid memories [9:36]

Setting up a research project in paradise [11:40]

Passion projects are important [19:50]

A traveling medicine man [27:00]

Link Lasers

Ben’s book recommendation – Being Mortal
I’ll have What Phil’s Having – A must if you’re a foodie
Ben’s DJ Books’ Soundcloud page

Full Interview Transcript

Chris: All right, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Study Abroadcast. I am here virtually with Dr. Benjamin Beatty. Ben and I have known each other for several years. He’s an extremely close friend. And he has studied abroad many times. He’s gone to Spain. He’s gone to Puerto Rico. And he took an adventure down to South America, which we can also talk about.

Ben, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And why don’t we just get started and tell us a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are today and what your study abroad trips and everything?

Ben: Will do. Thanks for having me, Chris. I want to say I love the name Study Abroadcast. That’s quite a bit creative and I love it.

Chris: Thank you very much.

Ben: But, yeah, a little bit about myself. I grew up with Chris in the Wisconsin area. And I went to a public high school and then ended up going to a Midwestern college, and then I had a couple important decisions come across me at that time in terms of what kind of pathway I was trying to pursue as a career, and that’s where I basically had ruled out business and installed Spanish and medicine as a career path for me.

And it worked out incredibly well. And it allowed me to travel every single year while I was at college, and those experiences ended up giving me plenty of ammunition and experiences to talk about and reflect on through the years and years and years of vetting and interviewing, and everything really culminated in incredibly valuable experience to where I’m at now.

And right now, I’m actually a medicine resident at University of Colorado, here in Denver. And I am in my second year. And so I will be here for another year and then will pursue community hospital medicine maybe around here or back in Midwest. So that’s me, Chris. That was maybe a little lengthy, but that hits the highlights.

Chris: No. Hey, go as far as you want. Yeah, I remember I think you told me that it was a business, Spanish and medicine and you had to pick two. Right?

Ben: Yes.

Chris: That was the path.

Ben: Correct. Correct.

Chris: Yeah.

Ben: It’s a very vivid memory of that decision.

Chris: Yeah. So maybe do you want to get into a little bit of what you did for studying abroad, like where did you go and what did you do while you were studying abroad?

Ben: Well, so as I mentioned, every single year I went to a different place because I had known very early on that Spanish was going to be my major, and so to decorate that and to feel the skills that come along with that I told myself I’d just be somewhere every year to just practice speaking the language. So the first year I went to the Dominican Republic.

Chris: Ah, yes, that’s right.

Ben: Yes, with a program that was organized through the university, University of Michigan. And it was two months and it was light schoolwork in a small project and we stayed with families, as is typical for these programs, and then had basically Monday through Friday light work and had a chance to do odds and ends with other American students. So that was that. That was fun.

Chris: Yeah. So then that was freshman year?

Ben: That was after my freshman year.

Chris: The summer after your freshman year, right?

Ben: Correct.

Chris: And then was it Madrid?

Ben: I went to Madrid the second half of my junior year. And that was a formal semester abroad. It was through IES which I think my impression is it’s a third party who works with the University of Michigan and has their own curriculum in school, in classrooms to do curriculum in Madrid. And then in addition I also took one or two classes at the Complutense University there. And it was a semester long.

Chris: So you told me a little bit about that and I’ve heard about that. That was a lot of fun, wasn’t it?

Ben: That was fantastic. Yeah. Another living in a family situation which is, of course, I’d recommend for anyone who’s going to be traveling somewhere for a period of time.

Chris: Oh, that’s good. So, yeah, get into that a little. You have options. You can stay with a host family. You can get a shared apartment. You can do an exchange program. Why would you recommend staying with a family? What’s the benefit of that in your opinion?

Ben: So I guess backing up, I think it depends on what you’re wanting to get out of the experience. I think if you’re really wanting to obtain language skills first and foremost, I think by necessity you have to stay and just be surrounded by that language for as much as you can. And so you miss out on that if you, for example, stay in a shared apartment with other English-speaking students, short of courageous efforts to try and speak Spanish amongst yourselves.

But I think in addition to the language, which I think is huge, the other thing is culture, the food. You get a lot better exposure. You inculcate yourself into it much easier and more obviously than you can go back to that apartment and have the comfort and familiarity of various American-theme things by virtue of the fact that everyone there is culturally the same. But you don’t get that. You’re forced to be surrounded by things that are almost always foreign and strange to you by living with someone who’s foreign and strange.

Chris: No. Yeah, it’s a good point. I did both. But I remember the first part I lived with, well, actually a host mother who had a small daughter and she was there for half the time, but yeah, they make the breakfast for you, so you get acclimated to the breakfast, really get the culture of the food, I think, right away, as well as the language. So, yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more there.

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: That’s a good advice. Sage advice recorded, that’s what we say.

Ben: Well, officially on the record, the shared experience might offer you more ability to party, have fun, stay up late, be American. So I’ll throw that out there. Depending on what you’re looking for, maybe depending on the length of time and so forth.

Chris: Right. No, no. Definitely. So it’s Madrid. And what were some of the things you did while in Madrid? Did you go to any other countries?

Ben: I did. I started frequently went probably on a every six to eight-week basis, would go on weekend or long weekend trips to surrounding countries, or surrounding regions. So I went to Morocco, for example. I went to other areas in Spain including the southern coast. We went to Ibiza, Majorca, which are day trips, or actually weekend trips. And then also went to London to see my brother briefly. That was another weekend trip.

Chris: Wait, he was there while you were over in Madrid?

Ben: He was. He overlapped at the end of my time there.

Chris: Yeah, I didn’t know that. Yeah, we’ll have to interview him too. But, yeah, just so you guys know, Ben’s got a twin brother. So we’re going to have an identical podcast coming up soon. But, yeah, that is awesome that you got to visit him. And what do you remember most about Madrid? I wrote about this, there is a show called I’ll Have What Phil’s Having. And it’s like Anthony Bourdain. It’s on PBS. It’s Phil Rosenthal. He was the co-writer of Everybody Loves Raymond. But he’s basically got the best job in the world. He just travels to different cities and samples delicious food from everywhere. And one of the cities he did, I believe was Madrid. I could be wrong. But just some of the places in there look so good.

Ben: Yeah. There are so many cool things about it. Their central square which the name escapes me, Plaza Central, which is the center plaza, was incredibly beautiful. Everything is from the 15 and 1400s. You have this stone work and a colonial feel. So it’s just a really, I don’t know, blast from the past type feel. That and elsewhere in Europe. And the restaurants. There’s a couple of great buyers in that area as well. But, yeah, it was a pretty cool place.

Chris: No, I’m sure there are. And also, too, as far as the culture goes – I learned this when I was in Buenos Aires – it’s so much different. The siestas and just staying, having it be normal to go to dinner late and stay out a lot later, it’s not just something you do when you’re young. It’s the norm for most people, right?

Ben: Right.

Chris: Yeah.

Ben: Right.

Chris: Yeah, I need to go back.

Ben: The calendar and timeline’s different. Yeah. It’s good because it definitely takes acclimating too. The whole schedule in and of itself is requiring an acclimation. So.

Chris: Yeah. So just so you know, ladies and gentlemen, we have Madrid. What was the first one again?

Ben: The first one was Dominican Republic.

Chris: Yeah. I read that. I’m sorry about that, I wrote that on a different page.

Ben: No worries.

Chris: Yeah. So Dominican Republic, Madrid, and then was it Puerto Rico?

Ben: I did Puerto Rico before Madrid and after Dominican Republic.

Chris: All right. So I skipped to the good part, I’m sorry. But Puerto Rico, I’m sure was awesome.

Ben: It’s all good. It’s all good.

Chris: I know firsthand it was awesome. Why don’t you tell everyone a little bit about Puerto Rico?

Ben: Puerto Rico was as an interesting gig that I got on my own. It was organized through a research group that basically spent time at this protected area, rainforest, in Puerto Rico on the northern coast. And they basically did an ecological research where they looked at tree growth over really long periods of time every 15, 20, 30, 40 years in response to weather and various patterns of growth, for example, and how it influences surrounding species. The elevation, what kind of influence that has on species, etc. So what this would require is for groups to go out every five years and do a census.

And so they were just having one of their routine census data collections, and I just emailed them and the rest was history. So I spent I guess two or two and half months or so down there in a little bunkhouse in the rainforest. And then we walked out to this area where we basically IDed and measured, mapped out trees in this large plot of land. And then we’d just come back at the end of the day.

Chris: That sounds so cool.

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. Wow. So, guys, just take note, he hasn’t even graduated yet and he’s doing these projects. So this is his third trip and by the time Madrid’s done, he won’t tell you, he’s modest, but he speaks Spanish fluently. Let me tell you, I have heard this guy in a cab in South America and he could give the cab driver directions. He is that good. No, you’re already doing these international projects and you’re studying science and you’re getting that background which is just building this massive, awesome resume that I know you have.

So there’s the three trips. So that’s kind of his study abroad. I know most people, that’s a lot, but looking back, hindsight – and I guarantee if you asked other people they’d wish they would have done more – but he’s the example of it. He really went above and beyond the study abroad. He’s a super study abroad warrior, I think. So you get back. So then you graduate. So then what do you do? Which is a question that a lot of people get. A lot of people graduate and they don’t know what they want to do or what their next step is. What did you have in mind? Where were you going then?

Ben: Well, so immediately after I graduated I actually went to Mexico for another little jaunt.

Chris: I didn’t even know about that one, or forgot about that one. All right.

Ben: Yeah. I went down there. This is another thing. Because I have this thing where I wanted to go every year, I want us to, once a year, go somewhere I could practice speaking Spanish. And so this was a random thing I found online, that was basically we rode around in the ambulance in a town in Guadalajara and then sat on a patio half the weekend and did Spanish one-on-one classes with this really cool guy. We spent some time in the emergency department too, just like putting Band-Aids on people and washing wounds and things like that, really mild stuff like that. Yeah. And then there I stayed at a little motel. And that was about a month or so. And then after that I moved to Chicago for two years with my twin.

Chris: Yeah, which was fun. I was there. So just to fill you guys in, he referenced this earlier, he’s now a doctor, completing his residency. Like most people do, he really had to scrap his way in. I was down there. It was for a party. I don’t think it was New Year’s, but it was something. So he was an EMT driver, or not a driver, but he was in EMT. And we went to a little party at one of your co-workers house. Why don’t you tell them about that? Do you remember that?

Ben: No, no, actually, Chris, I want to hear you tell this.

Chris: It wasn’t New Year’s, was it? It was just this party, right?

Ben: It wasn’t. It was a birthday.

Chris: It was a birthday. But I remember it was a big deal. So Ben, he was an EMT driver, it was the Southside, right? Was it the Southside?

Ben: Yeah, it was 55th and Lake Shore was where the garage was.

Chris: So Ben was an EMT driver, and I was finishing my undergrad in Whitewater at the time. So I popped down to Chicago just to visit Ben and his brother every now and then. And one time, out of the blue, Ben said, “Hey, my co-worker’s having this party. We should go. It’ll be fun.” And I go, “Okay. Yeah, sure.” And so we go to his house. And let’s just say it wasn’t in Lincoln Park or Wrigleyville. Right?

Ben: It was.

Chris: Yeah, so we go there and we’re like, we don’t really know what to expect, right? These three kids coming down and we’re kind of scared, what if something happens? And we ended up going there, and they were just the most hospitable people you could ever imagine. They pulled out all the stops for the party and we ended up having a phenomenal time, I think. Right? You had fun too, right?

Ben: It was great. It was fantastic.

Chris: So, yeah, they had food, they had drinks. It was so much fun.

Ben: Wings and whiskey. They had so many wings.

Chris: So many wings. They had a cake because it was a birthday.

Ben: Yeah, that’s right.

Chris: I started doing a little dancing, I think, as the night got towards the end like I sometimes do. But, yeah, it was just phenomenal. And you never know what you’re going to get with these experiences and that was one of the positives of it, I think. Just fun times like that, right?

Ben: Agreed. Agreed. It was an adventure. It was an adventure.

Chris: Yeah, no, it was an adventure. Well, I’ll just say we were scared going down there, and it ended up being an awesome time. So, moving on. We could probably sit here and tell Chicago stories for a while.

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. So then med school’s next. This is cool because I won’t know my guests as well as I do Ben. So Ben went med school next. And he just finished. You didn’t shoot abroad anywhere while you were in med school, did you?

Ben: I didn’t. It’s been less and less of a priority for me, I guess, international stuff at this point.

Chris: Right. But, yeah, we were talking about that earlier, not quite but eventually we’ll get more international. So, you’re a resident and if anyone knows a resident or has a family member that’s a resident in the medical field you know that they work hellish hours. So Ben is extremely busy which is why I’m super grateful that he took the time to do this. But it’s one of those jobs where you get home, you eat something, you play video games, you watch TV for a little bit, you go to bed, and then you’ve got to get up, just insane hours. So that said, is there anything that you work on now, any passion project that you have that you like to do for fun in your spare time?

Ben: There is. Actually, this is funny, right in the background of my screen I got my Ableton up. And I’ve been cranking a lot of hours on Ableton.

Chris: What’s Ableton?

Ben: Ableton is a music production software that basically lets me do mixups and mashups of songs I love. And it’s a creative process. It’s a little tenuous. There’s really minor, minor, minor programming. But it’s all very fun. So, yeah, that’s a little passion of mine.

Chris: So, yeah, Ben’s passion is DJing I should say. Everyone’s got to have a thing that they do, a little hobby. But he’s good. Maybe we could post a link to some of your SoundClouds on here.

Ben: I would love it.

Chris: Yeah, I think we should do that. So we’ve hit his DJ name. What is your DJ name? A lot of thought goes into this, right? Can you share that?

Ben: Of course. My DJ name is DJ Books.

Chris: His DJ name is DJ Books, formerly Ben-jamin.

Ben: Formerly known as, yes.

Chris: Yeah. Which is good. Books goes a long way back. It’s kind of an inside story. But DJ Books is Ben’s handle if you would like to hire him for your next birthday party, wedding, or bar mitzvah.

Ben: You can contact me on SoundCloud.

Chris: Yeah, we’ll definitely link you up. So that’s his jam now. That’s what he’s doing. You’re holding it down in Denver. Gorgeous city, right?

Ben: Beautiful. Beautiful city.

Chris: Yeah. And then the last time I saw Ben we actually had a get-together in Utah, little ski trip, and my haphazardly attempted snowboarding trip.

Ben: You’re getting better.

Chris: Maybe. But, yeah, so that was fun. We still haven’t grown up, really, our friends.

Ben: It’s true.

Chris: But I don’t think anyone does, which was a lot of fun. It was – what was it – Park City, right? Sundance?

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: That was the town. Yeah, it’s Park City, Utah. It was a blast. So onward, and here we go, we’re just marching through this thing. I think it’s a really good interview.

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: Can you share an epic travel story? Something you’d tell at a dinner party?

Ben: Let’s see. Epic travel story – I’m trying to think about the most appropriate one to share in this podcast.

Chris: Yeah, so this is what I tell people, something you’d tell at a dinner party and then you’re going to ask who were the guys at the dinner party.

Ben: Oh, no. That’s a lot harder.

Chris: I’d say push as far as you think you could without incriminating yourself, because remember, this is college students that are listening to this, right? You don’t have to tell them that, like, whoa, well one day I went to the library and I didn’t return the book on time.

Ben: Oh, man. I can tell you a pretty cool near-death experience. I wouldn’t say near-death, but a borderline experience. A buddy of mine and I were skiing at A-Basin. This was three years ago. And it was really early in the season, so the coverage was really terrible. So there’s a lot of hidden obstacles, rocks and sticks coming through. It was at the end of the day, probably at four o’clock. And my friend got courageous and suggested we go out of bounds and try to find some trails. And it ended up being a disaster. And then about an hour later the sun set and we were totally lost, and it was pitch-black, and we had to take off our skis and hike probably four, five miles down a hill.

Chris: Oh, my God!

Ben: And we were falling every six steps. We’d just fall straight down. I lost both my poles and ruined my skis. And then we finally come down probably three or four hours later, and we get to this opening. We haven’t seen moonlight in hours because the trees were covering over us. Finally, the trees open and we look up and there’s this probably 60-foot climb to the road. So we had come all the way down and we had to go up that and then hitchhike back to the parking lot where our car was. And it’s 11:30. And we survived.

Chris: Bro, I’m afraid of the dark in a parking lot. You’re up on an icy mountain trying to get down. It sounds like one of those survival movies or something. Oh!

Ben: It definitely made my heart race a little because I couldn’t keep my feet and I was literally just falling, grabbing stuff on the way down trying to stop myself. So it was like that.

Chris: Where did you say this was now?

Ben: That was in A-Basin at the very top.

Chris: Where is A-Basin?

Ben: It’s in Colorado. It’s one of the ski hills.

Chris: So you still had to travel to get there, right?

Ben: I know, I was thinking.

Chris: No. Dude, that’s probably a better story.

Ben: Yeah, it’s not a good home for us.

Chris: You should tell that. Yeah. So you almost died coming down from a mountain because it got dark. Just to fill you in, Ben is a big outdoors guy. He said his passion is DJing, but you’ll find him camping, you’ll find him skiing, you’ll find him on the water. He’s extremely active and he’s always up to something fun like that. So you’ve got your residency now. I have here on my interview checklist, do you have anything that’s next or anything you want to complete in the future or what are you striving towards or your goal other than completing your residency and becoming a world-renowned DJ who cures the sick?

Ben: Yeah, well, those are all appropriate goals. Those are all goal-worthy. But honestly, one of the things I’m really looking forward to is getting back to traveling. Residency is a time suck, so you never get more than a couple days off here and there. But when I’m done with residency, what my career’s going to look like is a very block-type, shift-type schedule. And so I’ll have a week of work and then a week off of two weeks on, two weeks off. And it’s literally I’m done after my two weeks are up, and I don’t have to come back or think about it for one or two weeks. And that’s regularly how my months will look. So it’s a little bit different than the 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, but you get more chunks of time off and you work hard, play hard.

Chris: Yeah, no, definitely. Didn’t you talk about or is this a thing where you can be a traveling doctor? Am I wrong?

Ben: Yeah. You can.

Chris: All right. So, yeah, I don’t know if that would ever entertain. Just to fill you guys in, Ben’s dad is also a doctor and he resides in Madison, Wisconsin, but he did a, what do we call it, an exchange or he started practicing medicine in New Zealand. It was more than a year, right? It was a while.

Ben: I think it was two years. It’s two years.

Chris: Yeah, he was over there for two years. A lot of work to do that. There’s a lot of red tape. Am I right?

Ben: Yeah, tons of hoops. Tons of hoops.

Chris: Yeah, you can’t just shoot over and start practicing medicine. But for all the med school people out there, that’s kind of a thing. It’s like adult studying abroad for doctors, for long-term. So if you ever want to do that, the option is on the table. Very cool. Thank you. All right, on to the rapid fire questions, Ben. Are you ready?

Ben: I think so. Yeah.

Chris: All right. One book that I recommend is?

Ben: I was going to say Atul Gawande – what’s the title – Being Mortal.

Chris: Being Mortal? Okay. We’ll link some of these up, too. Being Mortal. All right, what’s that about?

Ben: It’s a mix of anecdotes and essay narrative about the process of dying.

Chris: Oh, my God.

Ben: And Atul Gawande is the author. Also, he happens to be a surgeon in Boston. And he’s an incredibly talented writer. He contributes a lot to the New Yorker. And he writes books as well, and this most recent one was about different themes and discussions about the dying process, which is fascinating to me.

Chris: Yeah, as soon as we stop, I’ll send you a link. There’s actually just a great podcast and article I read about death, and this guy has studied all about it and the gist is that as you’re about to die it’s the little things that you really treasure, getting a glass of water, the taste of eggs, that kind of thing that you really recognize. But I’ll send you the link to this. And maybe I’ll link it up in the notes here. So, yeah, that’s the book recommendation. We’ll link that up. Back home would be Madison, Wisconsin, for you. What is your favorite dish from back home?

Ben: Macaroni and cheese.

Chris: Macaroni and cheese. Wisconsin, baby, cheese all the way. Yes. Good answer. All right, macaroni and cheese. You can do the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, anywhere you want, what’s your favorite dish abroad? Well, we’ll get into this at the end, but go ahead, what’s your favorite dish abroad?

Ben: I’m going to go with tortilla. Spanish tortilla.

Chris: Tapas, right?

Ben: All about the tapas.

Chris: Yeah. I think that makes for the most fluent conversation. I love it when they keep bringing stuff to you.

Ben: Taste of beans.

Chris: Yeah, little taste of food and it just facilitates the conversation, the service, that there’s always something happening at the table, I think.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah, it’s good food.

Chris: Yeah, I love it. When I walk into a bar I’ll order a…

Ben: A stout, these days.

Chris: All right, that’s the move?

Ben: I’ve been into stouts. That’s the move.

Chris: All right. A stout. And if you could have dinner with one person, who would it be? And I need to rephrase the question, but I figured this out on my last interview. The person is living because this interview may shoot up to the top of all that is internet search and it might get back to this person saying, hey, Ben Beatty wants to have dinner with me, maybe I’ll give him a call or send him an email. So if you could have dinner with one living person, who would it be?

Ben: Interesting. I would say my dad.

Chris: I’ve had dinner with your dad and I agree. Yes. All right, good answer.

Ben: He’s not famous, but I’m just going to stay homeboy.

Chris: Well, you know what? I have a hunch about this. I think you might be able to make that happen.

Ben: Yeah, I appreciate it.

Chris: We might be able to make that happen, yeah. I’m at my happiest when I’m…

Ben: Outside.

Chris: Outside. All right. I think most people are, but yes, that is a good answer. Outside. Especially now, right?

Ben: Oh!

Chris: Yeah.

Ben: Chris, this morning I went skiing at A-Basin and then came back and hit a bucket of balls at the range. Same day, man. It’s a bucket list item for me.

Chris: I hate you. All right. And last but not least, and if you don’t have one it’s fine, but do you have a quote that you would like to share?

Ben: Does it have to be mine?

Chris: No. No, no, no. Like a quote from a guy, the favorite quote. Yeah.

Ben: I’m going to go with a Biggie Smalls quote.

Chris: All right.

Ben: “Only make moves if your heart’s in it. The sky’s the limit.”

Chris: All right. Notorious B.I.G.

Ben: Rest in peace.

Chris: Yeah, Notorious B.I.G., rest in peace. Yeah. Love it. That is a good one. Now I think I’m going to listen to Little Biggie after we hang up here. You put it into my head.

Ben: It’s a good one.

Chris: Yeah. And then following up, I was going through my Vimeo and I wiped my old computer and I still kick myself to this day, but Ben actually also in addition to Dominican Republic, to Madrid, to Puerto Rico, and to Guadalajara he also came down and visited me while I was studying abroad. And we had a blast. He was there for two weeks. And we did Patagonia, Bariloche and also Florianópolis which both of them were tremendous.

And we made a little video while we were down there, which I might have to link up. If our friends see this, they’ll probably kick me because it’s old and they all saw it, but I think it would be cool for everyone to see it. But, yeah, I had a blast. And going off the meals, that’s why I interjected when you were saying your favorite dish abroad because still to this day, two of the best meals I’ve had in my life, one of them was that sushi place we went to in Florianópolis.

Ben: Yeah.

Chris: We tried to figure out the name of it and I think I might call or email the guy who owns the hostel we stayed at to figure it out. But we had the sushi and it was so good.

Ben: It was amazing.

Chris: It was like the fish was caught that day, I think, they said. And best sushi I’ve ever had still.

Ben: Yeah. It was wonderful.

Chris: Yeah. Ben, so anything else you want to add?

Ben: Well, I guess I would leave some parting words to people considering studying abroad.

Chris: Yeah, please do tell us.

Ben: And the position that they might be in academically. And that is to say take your time; that would be my one piece of advice. And there’s absolutely no downside and really only upsides to taking one, two years off between stages of career building. So that’s the last thing I would say. And otherwise, definitely get out of the country as soon as you can.

Chris: Yeah, that’s why this website exists. That’s why the blog exists. You got to do it. I’m actually going to write something about that. Yeah, you’ve got to do it. Ben, thanks again very much for being here. We’ll have to do it again. I am going to stop the recording now. Let’s talk. And hey, guys, thank you so much for tuning in. We’re going to have more of these stories, so just stick around and see what’s up. All right, thank you.

Ben: Cool. Thanks for having me.

Chris: Yep.