As an international student coming to the United States, changes in life and environment are drastically happening. Studying abroad will open you to a new vision, new experiences, new challenges susceptible to help you throughout your life. On December 15th, 2018, I arrived in the U.S in Maryland specifically at Baltimore ready to start a new chapter of my life. Without any college level of English just few words, I first enrolled in an English learning program at Notre Dame University of Maryland where I stayed five months. During these five months, I face new challenges that helped me grow. First, I could not speak the language nor understand it so I challenge myself by trying even though people would laugh at me. Second, as I started leaving alone at a really young age, I learned how to take care of myself, cook and make friends in a whole new environment. Being there made me experience a shock of cultures; people from all around the world meeting at one place and sharing their cultures and knowledge. After finishing my program, I decided to come to Texas at Houston community college in August 2019 to start my college course. I decided to come to Texas because it is the most suitable state for my major which is Petroleum engineering. From there, a two years run started where I dedicated myself on just studying and my all time hobby and dream which is, playing soccer. Houston was a whole new environment again different from Baltimore. People activities are different, their behavior too. I was growing as a man, I was blossoming. And something that nobody could have expected happened: “the Covid 19 pandemic.” Then from a year and half we have been studying apart from socialization. Not being able to make physical contact with friends and classmates really deteriorate our involvement with the society plus the cost of life that was overwhelming. My parents were hardly able to help me with my tuition and living expenses. A terrible experiment that I could not imagine that I would survive to. After having my associate degree in science, I decided to transfer at University of Houston in August 2021, where I will be continuing my degree in Petroleum Engineering. University of Houston is an enjoyable place to be. An environment made for students to study and get involve with the activities of life. International clubs make the difference because you are around people coming from different places of the world and sharing their experiences with you. My goal is to be able to graduate with a good GPA, be able to find a decent job in my field where I will be satisfied and happy. I would like to be able after these years of knowledge and experiences to extract the oil in my country which Mali and represent the biggest company all around the world. A career that cannot be fulfilled if I am not ready to put the work in which I willing to do. Studying abroad is an astonishing road that you must experience if you want to acquire new objectives, new mentality and new cultures. it helped me to find myself, to have a new understanding of the world, to evolve as a man and to study new things that will help me in my future career.