I've been a student in the UK for 6 years. But my family in the US is getting older, and I'm torn about moving back to be with them.

26.08.2024 - 05:46 / insider.com / William Shakespeare

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Scarlett Kiaras-Attari, a marketing executive and education content creator who moved to the UK for her studies. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to live in the UK someday.

I was born in London to an Iranian-British father and an American mother, but I was raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Throughout my childhood,my dad sharedfond memories of growing up in the UK, and I became enamored by the idea of living there again.

When deciding where to go for college, it was an easy decision to go to the UK, as I also hold a British passport. But where I grew up, it's not common to go abroad for college. Most of my peers stayed in the South — evenmoving to New England was considered far.

I applied to a few safety schools in the US but got accepted to the University of Edinburgh. In 2018, I packed my bags and moved to Scotland.

At Edinburgh, I could study what I wanted — History — and didn't have to fiddle with other subjects, which would have been required at most liberal arts programs in the US.

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The price was also a huge advantage. I paid around $24,500 a year, compared to $67,446 for out-of-state tuition at the University of Chicago, where I had also applied.

As a student under 22, I could travel for free by bus throughout Scotland.

The advantage of studying there was also being able to experience new cultures and visit other European countries.

I wanted to pursue a master's in medieval history. Although there are so many great departments in the US for religious studies and medieval history, my mentors at school had all studied atOxbridge — colleges across Oxford and Cambridge. So, in 2022, I followed their advice and pursued a master's in Medieval History at the University of Oxford.

When I finished my master's this year, I still wasn't ready to leave. I didn't want toreturn to the US because all my friends were in the UK. If I returned, I would have to start again to build connections and friendships.

I was in this middle ground where I wished I could just pack up everything and move everything in my life altogether at once. That's the difficulty of expat life — there's the US in the UK version of myself, and I'm always teetering between two places.

I was fascinated by William Shakespeare's "Richard III" and adored "Horrible Histories" — a British children's TV show about historical events — and other media that came from the UK.

When you romanticize a place, you think it can do no wrong. After my move, I realized that the UK does not have the glowing hearts around it as I had pictured. It has its quirks and flaws — but I still love it.

When I first got here and felt frustrated about