A Journey Inward: How Daily Journaling Leads to Personal Growth

By Alex Masci (UC Berkeley)

Day 116 – Last Day in Villarrica (12/26/2023): With most of my stuff packed up, I returned to the yard to sit under the apple tree and soak in my surroundings. The warm red color of my host mom’s home with its open windows and smoking chimney. Chickens were clucking around, pecking for food on the ground. The shade of the trees with budding green apples and cherries, many of them already half eaten by birds at their most sour stage.

I feel like I’ve grown up here. My time in Villarrica has shaped who I want to be as a person. I want to care for others, animals, the land, and plants. I want to cultivate the caring and resilient independence I see in my host mom, the humility and humor I see in my host dad, and the willingness to change while also following my gut instincts as I see in Newen, their five-month-old puppy.

That entry is just one of the 289 pages I wrote during 125 days of studying abroad in Chile, where I had the privilege of living on a small farm with a wonderful host family.

I kept a digital journal on study abroad, and now that my time abroad has concluded, I am grateful to have an incredibly detailed account of all my adventures, big and small, as well as the personal growth I experienced. Each entry is a testament to the power of journaling, capturing the most exciting moments and those subtle moments of growth and reflection.

Here’s why I started my study abroad journey with a journal, even though I’m not an avid writer, and why it made my time abroad so meaningful. As they say in Chile, “Vamos!”

Why I Started Journaling

While I’ve journaled off and on throughout my life, it was never with the dedication and detail of my daily entries from my time in Chile. I was inspired to keep a travel journal in Chile from a trip to Japan the previous summer. To keep my family updated about my safety while I was thousands of miles away, I wrote detailed recaps with accompanying photos to them each day of my three-week trip.

As I recounted my feelings through the excitement and challenges of traveling solo through Japan, journaling became therapeutic, and I learned a valuable lesson.

As my departure for Chile closed in, I knew I wanted to journal as I had through Japan. I saw it as an opportunity to capture the once-in-a-lifetime adventures and lessons in personal growth that I knew I could encounter while abroad.

Of course, I worried that maintaining the rigorous daily routine in Chile might prove more difficult than my experience in Japan. Could I keep up with the pace of writing in my journal every day alongside my coursework, language practice, and cultural immersion? What if I missed days or didn’t feel motivated to keep writing?

Alternatively (I argued with myself), would I leave Chile without recording the exciting memories and have only half-finished thoughts?

My Journaling Process

I’ll admit it was daunting at first, but journaling quickly became a part of my daily routine. My favorite time to write was just before bed at the end of the day’s adventures. Just after changing into pajamas, I’d curl up with my laptop and let the words fly!

I discovered that lists of bullet points would soon evolve into multi-paragraph entries, quickly recapping the entire day and all I’d learned.

With frequent travels embedded into my study abroad program and countless weekend trips, I found myself writing whenever I found a spare moment–on long bus rides, in grocery lines, at transit stations, and Airbnbs. Some days, many days actually, were so exciting and exhausting that I was too drained to write at night, leading to those entries spilling over into breakfast entries.

At times it felt like a chore to document each detail, and some of my friends began lovingly referring to my practice as self-assigned homework, and I began to agree with them.

Looking back, I’m extremely grateful for the once-in-a-lifetime moments I’d recorded in near real-time. Without those entries, I might not have been able to capture the exhilaration of hiking a snow-capped volcano with my roommates on a spontaneous trip arranged by our host family’s adventurous neighbor.

Or the triumph of hiking the 20-mile trail that summits Patagonia’s Mount Fitz Roy, one of the world’s most famous hikes, in a single day all by myself!

Even more rewarding is rereading vividly recorded memories that photos alone can’t capture, like the hilarious jokes my host dad cracked at the dinner table or how my host mom always passed me the bowl of dulce de leche to satisfy my sweet tooth. Even better were the hugs from my host mom before leaving for school, walking to class past the neighbor’s tranquil horse, and dinner conversations in Spanish. Daily routines like these made Chile feel like home.

I’ll always remember the patter of rain on the cabin roof, chickens claiming the ladder to roost safely in the walnut tree, and interactions with kind Chilean locals—all joyfully preserved in the pages of my journal.

The Unexpected Benefits—and Why You Should Try Journaling

The most obvious benefit is that I have a dense collection of memories in my own words. As a self-proclaimed sentimentalist, I cherish my journal and the memories I can faithfully share with loved ones.

And journaling brought unexpected benefits to my personal growth process while studying abroad.

The first surprising benefit was tracking my ability to speak Spanish. I had only basic Spanish skills before I arrived, and I struggled to communicate. One of my journal entries described how hard it was to tell a story to my host mom because I didn’t know how to speak in the past tense!

Her patience and positive reinforcement taught me to try my best rather than aim for perfection. This idea guided me and my Spanish abilities soon soared. Linguistically difficult interactions transformed into meaningful connections, and my journal holds these lessons about the challenges and joys of learning new things.

The second most surprising benefit was how my journal served as a safe place to examine the complexities of living abroad beyond the picture-perfect moments. In my journal, I could express the struggles of making new friends, maintaining relationships at home, finding new routines, and ultimately discovering myself. Writing challenged me to look within for what makes me truly happy—solitude in nature, tender moments with strangers-turned-friends, and sharing warm meals all make my heart glow.

Steps to Start Journaling

If you’re preparing to study abroad and thinking of keeping a journal, I have some tips to share for maximizing the process and enjoying your writing journey.

1. Set clear goals for yourself: Think about how often you want to write and what topics you want to remember. Whether it’s daily reflections, immersive experiences, or academic progress, having a plan keeps you focused and motivated to continue journaling.
2. Embrace your unique voice: Your journal is your space to be your true self. Don’t worry about perfect grammar. It will be even more personal if it’s in your own speaking style. I added meaningful Spanish words to the day’s conversation and Chilenismos, which are Chilean slang terms, to my entries.
3. Be kind to yourself: Absolute consistency can be tough to achieve while on study abroad, and your journey shouldn’t and won’t be perfect. Even on busy days, jotting down a few thoughts and feelings can be enough to capture the essence of what you’re experiencing. Write a list of bullets that you can come back and fill in the next day.
4. Use a reliable platform to avoid mishaps: Trust me, I learned this the hard way when I lost a lot of entries in Japan. I was using a notes app that didn’t save automatically. I recommend Google Docs in offline mode so you can write on the go.
5. Include photos! These can add spice and help spur memories when you’re writing later on.

Ultimately, as much as my study abroad experience was about my incredible adventures, it was also about my personal transformations and deep connections. I departed Chile with a deeper appreciation for the vastness of the world, all its cultures and people, and the simultaneous interconnectedness that we are all a part of, all in the pages of my journal.

Learn more about all the things you discover about yourself while studying abroad:

• Setting goals for a purposeful experience can help you make the most out of your study abroad experience, no matter how long the program.
• See the 10 skills UCEAP returnees say they learned abroad and how those skills have paid off since they left their comfort zone.