Welcome to Wanderlust College Counseling’s first blog post! I’ve wanted to launch this project for a while as a way to share insights from the 20 years that I’ve worked as a college counselor, both in schools and as an independent educational consultant. So much of my passion for working with high school students to help them find their pathways is based on my own journey, which was definitely not a straight line from Point A to Point B! For that reason, I thought a good way to open the blog is to share a bit about how I got here. “Here” now includes both two decades of counseling AND moving abroad myself; sometimes I still can’t believe either of those things.
My college journey started off rather messy; I was determined to study Journalism and Broadcasting at Boston University, applied Early Decision, got accepted with generous financial aid, and was off to manifest my dream… which ended up being a flop. I was not nearly ready for the experience of going to college across the country from home, being responsible to get myself up for early-morning classes, or advocating for myself when I needed help. I also realized that I had glamorized the idea of Journalism, and it was not what I had thought it would be. I was a 1st-Generation college student without having the language or support for it all those years ago, and I didn’t understand any of the visible or invisible obstacles that we know today exist for 1st-Gen students. Plus, I also had to work a lot in order to make ends meet for spending money, so I spent a lot of time off campus, not realizing the specific importance of making friends and getting involved on campus. In short, I spent three semesters there spinning my wheels and came home feeling defeated and lost in the middle of my sophomore year.
I withdrew from BU and enrolled in my local community college in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I matured a little, earned excellent grades, and refocused my interests. I decided to major in Psychology and transferred to Mills College, a local all-women’s liberal arts college (recently merged with Northeastern University). I changed my major a second time to French Studies because French had always been my favorite subject in school, a decision that unlocked the opportunity to study abroad in Paris for a year. Attending French university classes on complex topics in French was incredibly difficult, but also life-altering– for example, my Art History class met regularly in the Musée d’Orsay to study the Impressionist painters up close and personal. Suddenly I became a “museum person” and regularly traveled to destinations in Europe to view more art. Who even was I? I had become a person who learned how to navigate foreign places with old-school maps and no cell phones (honestly, how did we actually manage this?), discovered gnocchi two skips from the Spanish Steps in Rome, drove the Irish countryside on the opposite side of the road, bought my first Doc Martens in London, and chased the Aurora Borealis all the way north to the Finnish Arctic Circle, among many other memorable moments… In short, this experience opened up my world to travel, culture, and genuine independence; I came home a different version of myself. I knew that I was meant to do something international in my life, though it was very fuzzy at that point. To this day I still wonder who I would be now if not for that experience– it was truly formative to my core being.
Fast-forward a while after graduating: I worked in technology consulting for two years, which was immediately identified as an ill career fit; it homed in for me the need and desire to work with people in a relational way. I found myself gravitating back towards Psychology and began dabbling in books and coursework for personal interest; reading the book Schoolgirls in the early 2000s by Peggy Orenstein crystallized a new mission to work as a school counselor, so I headed to grad school at University of San Francisco for my Master’s in Counseling Psychology, which at long last, fit like a glove. I was extraordinarily fortunate to land a counselor position at a prestigious high school in Silicon Valley where I was able to build my counseling career and visit tons of colleges along the way. I loved being a part of our school community, and especially cherished working with my students to help them imagine their futures. This was always the most joyous and electric part of my work!
And yet… I still felt the pull of an international life. Through traveling several times to Italy, I fell madly in love with this country and became convinced that I was destined to live here. (The most useful application of my French skills in the long run? Learning Italian.) I just needed a plan to put the proper steps in my path to make it happen. Meanwhile, I added independent educational consulting to my repertoire, began visiting dozens of universities abroad, built relationships with university Admissions representatives, and implemented internationally-focused college programming at my school. My most inspiring students were the ones with that adventurous spark who wanted to go abroad! Their appetite for language, travel, cultural immersion, and living at the edge of their comfort zones signaled that they were ready to take on the world with awe; it became my mission to help students realize their dreams of studying internationally.
And then, my own day came, rather unexpectedly. While I was gradually preparing myself to apply for international school positions, a colleague I’d met a couple of years prior at a summer counselor program in Rome (who by that time had also moved from the U.S. to Italy), reached out to me about a counselor position in Florence. Although it was sooner than planned, I knew this was my chance to leap, so I packed up my life in the Fall of 2023, dove head-first into the dizziness of Italian bureaucracy, and landed in Italy at the end of that year. To call it a “whirlwind” is a breathtaking understatement.
There were many early moments wondering if I’d just ruined my life, if I was an actually insane person, and if I could realistically build a new life here. I learned quickly that vacationing in Italy and living in Italy are vastly different experiences… and I don’t regret making the move for one second. I’ve been here now for over two years and have moved from Florence to the Venice area. I can very much say that I understand the experience of moving abroad, which is filled with daily linguistic challenges (and triumphs!), the aforementioned otherworldly bureaucracy, constant on-the-fly problem-solving, and a profound beauty that I could not have fathomed while navigating the hustle-and-bustle of my life in California. Living abroad requires infinite patience and humility while relearning how to adult in another language and culture. For me, it has been worth every bit of struggle to grow in the ways I wanted to, and to enjoy creating and re-creating the map of my life.
My personal road to school counseling, then specifically college counseling, and finally to international college counseling makes so much sense now in hindsight. We didn’t have counselors in my high school and I had to figure it out mostly myself. I don’t think I had any knowledge at that time that I could have studied my entire degree abroad, and honestly I don’t know that I would have wanted that yet; my world was so much smaller then. For a long time I hesitated to talk about my experience that had taken so many detours– it wasn’t the traditional path or the easy path. And then when I became a counselor I realized that sharing my story helped normalize for students that there is no one “right” or “perfect” journey. Now there are so many more resources and options for students, and the world is truly at their fingertips. I can help students find their own paths most effectively because I’ve literally done it myself and continue to navigate the twists and turns of life abroad on a daily basis. Fortunately being an international student provides much more shelter and support than moving as an adult, and I am bursting with excitement to meet the young people who want to embark on this adventure!
Where will your wanderlust take you?
© 2026 Dafna Adler & Wanderlust College Counseling
