Hi, Cedarville! My name is Juliana Mantz, and I am currently a junior marketing student. I grew up in Rochester, New York, and relocated to Dayton, Ohio, my sophomore year of high school. God led me to the Cedarville cornfields after graduating in 2020. After a number of major and minor changes, I finally settled on marketing. One of the biggest questions when I was switching from psychology to marketing was: “Will I still be able to study abroad?”
The thing about me is I cannot stay in the same place for very long. I love to be on the go and experience new things. Because I have these qualities, (that can be dangerous or good depending on the time!) traveling has always been a passion of mine. New York and Ohio are both home for many reasons, but there is so much of the world to see. Thankfully, Cedarville encourages studying abroad. My best friend and I started meeting with academic and study abroad counselors, trying to figure out when we could go and where would be the best location for our majors.
To study abroad, there are hoops and hoops to jump through. Cedarville obviously does not have campuses all over the world, so they partner with study abroad programs. The study abroad program I study with is CEA CAPA Education Abroad. There were many forms, many fees, many calls, meetings, and many email threads. I am not going to lie to you when I say it was absolutely stressful and time consuming. Now that I am here, in Europe, every form, fee, call, meeting, and email thread was worth it.
I study through CEA CAPA in the French Riviera. Let me tell you all, there are no cornfields here. My apartment is a five-minute walk from the Mediterranean Sea. On the beach you can look and see the Italian coastline and the French Alps in the distance. So many times I find myself asking, “What is my life right now?” The location is an absolute dream.
As far as classes go, CEA partners with a business school in the area, Skema Business School, where I take marketing and business classes. It is absolutely wild to be taking international business and marketing while being abroad. Each class meets once a week for three hours at a time, which is obviously vastly different from Cedarville or any college in the states! Since classes only meet once a week, I do not have any classes on Thursday or Friday. This means more time on the weekend to travel to neighboring countries and cities nearby.
It is an absolute dream to be going to different countries almost every weekend. It is an absolute dream to be riding the bus to school and see the Alps on my way there. Like I mentioned earlier, a big reason I chose to study abroad is because I always want to be exploring and on my way somewhere. Although after traveling the first couple times in college with my best friend, I told her, “I feel God’s presence so much more when I travel. I feel Him more, I hear Him more, and I see Him more.” God’s creation is so beautiful. I want to constantly be in awe of it. For me personally, I never want to settle in a normal day-to-day life. I want to see as much of His work as I can.
Studying abroad was a no-brainer for me; it is a perfect time in my life, while I am young, to learn, grow, and experience new things. I am thankful for this new familiar I have here, and I am also thankful for the old familiar I have at Cedarville and at my home. God is good, and I hope I forever chase incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like these.
Majoring in Marketing
- Hometown: Kettering, OH
- Coffee Order: Iced Chai Latte with Vanilla Cold Foam from Starbucks
- Favorite Bible Verse: Nahum 1:7
Tags: #academics, #studyabroad, #travel
Posted in: Experience, Student Life, Study Abroad