Greetings from Lancaster PA (not just the home of the Amish)!

My name is Amy Kautz and I will be coming to you from Maastricht, the Netherlands this coming August 20! I am a world campus student, working and schooling full-time, and am striving to keep my Crohn’s disease (an chronic inflammatory bowel disease that = crappy, literally) under control. Although this should technically be my last semester, I will have to complete the capstone class at PSU when I get back from studying abroad.

I currently work as a barista, baker and candlestick maker (just kidding on that last one). Here are a few pics of the little cafe at which I work, located strangely enough in a (upscale) retirement community.


The residents for the most part don’t get it…”Starbucks” or “cafe” is just not in their vocabulary, but I try. Just try explaining “espresso” or “g�teau au chocolate” a 90 year old! Most of my regulars, however, are very excited for my study abroad trip to begin. We have a weekly count down going…some of them are very sweet.

I am a psychology major and will be studying at Maastricht University (UM…well, that’s the abbreviation from the Dutch spelling!). I signed up for the Psychology and Neuroscience Program because they offered so many neuropsychology courses that I couldn’t begin to fathom trying to fit similar courses into my already crowded life! I wait with bated breath to hear back from UM on whether I got my first choices for my fall schedule. If all goes as planned, I’ll be taking the core course for the program, a Dutch language and culture course, a neuropsychological rehabilitation class (with work-site visits, I think!), intro to clinical neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology!!! There are not enough exclamation marks in the world to express my joy/anticipation/anxiousness/giddiness/delirium/excitement/terror/fear/bliss at all these lovely course selections and to the whole studying abroad thing–IN EUROPE!

Insert cheesy line~~~> sometimes dreams really do come true!
…okay, that will be enough cheesiness, I promise 🙂

If you couldn’t tell, I am as surprised to actually be studying abroad as I am that I will be studying such a wonderful courses…in Europe, the dream of my youthful dalliances in fantasy and adventure! So, aside from the obvious “I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M ACTUALLY GOING TO EUROPE–FOR ALMOST FIVE MONTHS!!!”, there is the “oh crap, I still have to take care of my Crohn’s!” When initially contemplating studying abroad, I nearly let the fear of a flare or the difficulty in obtaining the medicine needed stop me. I pushed that silliness down fast! You see, I have to take a medicine called Remicade–an immunosuppressant that knocks out my immune system to keep it from attacking itself (i.e., ME!). In the states I go to a medical outpatient unit, where they also do blood transfusion and chemo treatments, get hooked up to an IV and then usually watch a free movie while it infuses (about 2 to 2 1/2 hours). Not knowing what the frak I would or could do while abroad, I nevertheless pressed the button: APPLY (for study abroad). Upon a little more research, I thought it a good sign when I searched where to get Remicade in Europe and found a manufacturing plant in Leiden–right there in the Netherlands! Good news. When I broke the news to my GI doc, I received a surprisingly exuberant response…not the furrowed brow and shaking head that I had envisioned, rather his excitement for me only solidified by confidence in my decision. 

My goals for this blog are: to contribute to it regularly, try to minimize (or give fair warning to) the toilet talk–sorry, that’s just such an intregal part of my daily existence from which I can’t escape that it will inevitably end up here–, relate my experiences as world campus student (who has only ever taken university classes online!), and as a non-traditional student. And also include lots of photos, videos, and maybe some vlogs!

As of now, I am of the mindset that this will be akin to a life-break…no house, no kitty-cats , no boyfriend, no JOB!, no car–I feel like I am about to time-travel back in time to an alternate history version of my life! Upon all else, my goal is to give a unique perspective to studying abroad, through which I can hopefully inspired someone else, be it a non-traditional or on-line student, a full-time worker or someone with a chronic illness, to study abroad! My original inspiration was reading someone else’s blog (located I’ve forgotten where now) about struggling with Crohn’s disease AND studying abroad…twice, if I recall correctly. Inspired.

Thanks to all who have read through this long-winded, rambly first post!