What could have been

When I start thinking about my experience abroad I always recall I wasted my first chance to be an expat. If I have had the guts I could have been an expat almost two years before I left Spain.

It was 1999 and I had just finished my economics degree. During my last academic year I had a grant from the Ministry of Education that allowed me to get introduced to research in the Applied Economics Department (Universitat de València) and I was sketching my first academic paper. As I had been into an specific methodology I had suscribed to some mailing lists. Then, a call for expressions of interest for a grant in an European business school appeared in my inbox… and I applied. However, after a week of exchanging e-mails with the person who was going to choose the students to receive the grant and receiving the definitive one, stating I could go ahead and send the paperwork because they were interested in my profile I failed to my academic future and answered very politely I wasn’t actually prepared to move to England.

Years after this episode, already living in UK, I found myself in front of the gates of this institution staring at their logo. I carried on walking while I was thinking what could have been…