From Tacoma to Tokyo

Being the only student to attend an international alumni conference in Tokyo might be the best career move I’ve made yet.

Before I get into my experience, I want to start with something simple: perspective.

I’ve grown up in a lot of different places, including Europe, Africa and the United States. For a long time, I thought I had already seen the world. I thought I understood people, culture and what life could look like. But the truth is, I was still in a bubble. It wasn’t until I started traveling on my own, especially to Japan, that I really felt that bubble break.

I first traveled to Japan as an exchange student, not really knowing what to expect. Over those seven months, it became less of a study abroad experience and more of a place where I built real connections and found a routine. That’s when it stopped feeling like a temporary place and started to feel like home.

Coming back to Tokyo for UW Converge — the University of Washington’s annual international alumni gathering — was different than anything I expected. There were hundreds of Huskies there: alumni from the ’90s, early 2000s and even recent grads I recognized from when I first got to UW Tacoma.

I realized something pretty quickly: everyone had a business card. Everyone. It felt like even the cooks in the kitchen were ready to network. There I was, the only current student in the room, without one. What surprised me most was how little that mattered.

No one treated me like just a student. As the only one attending this conference, it would’ve been easy to write me off. Instead, I was welcomed with open arms. People wanted to talk, connect and above all, they wanted to give back. It was those conversations that stuck with me more than anything else.

As students, we don’t always get to see what life looks like after graduation. At Converge, I got to see it in real time.

I met people who once sat where I sit now — building careers, building lives and still coming back to support others. That gave me something I didn’t even realize I needed: clarity and hope.

Being back in Tokyo reminded me of why I fell in love with it in the first place. Walking through the city, seeing the cherry blossoms again, being in a place where everything feels alive, but also peaceful at the same time. In a way, it felt like I never left. I had the chance to reconnect with my host family, my friends, people from my university and even a couple of restaurant owners who remembered me.

There were moments where I’d just sit there, look around and see conversations happening all around me. Some that started with me, some that didn’t — all worth being entirely present with. The overwhelming feeling was peace.

I think that’s when it really clicked for me. Why Japan? It wasn’t just the opportunity or the experience. It was how I felt there.

As a tall Black man, I didn’t feel out of place. I didn’t feel different. Whether I was in class, in a café, walking through the city or hiking, people were open. People were curious, and they wanted to connect. As a result, I’ve built relationships that I still carry with me every single day.

Because of my time in Japan and everything I experienced through UW Converge, I now see something bigger for myself. I see a future in a place where people are open to exchanging ideas, where innovation is constant and where there’s a hunger to grow. It all goes back to stepping outside of that bubble.

To my fellow students, if there’s one thing you take away from my experience, I hope it’s this: you don’t have to spend a semester overseas to study abroad. You can expand your understanding of the world (and earn your degree) with experiences as unique as you are.

So don’t let your world stay small. Once you step outside of it — once you put yourself in new environments, around new people — everything changes. Your perspective, your goals and your belief in what’s possible.

In other words: You can create something bigger than yourself if you’re open to it. Travel is good at that — new streets, new rules and new facets of yourself you didn’t know you had.

And in the middle of it all, in that exhilarating collision of culture, opportunity awaits.

Abdi Farah is a fourth-year student at UW Tacoma studying Information Technology. After graduation, he plans to attend graduate school in Japan.