Every year, American students from across the country revel in taking a semester off of their domestic lives to fully engross themselves in a foreign culture. Many return from the experience to find themselves an entirely changed person, the USA dull and drab in comparison to the colorful culture they’ve just returned from. Some even consider themselves ‘ruined’ by the experience, as they just can’t get the same joy out of college life now that they know what they’re missing abroad. Having recently reopened its doors to incoming students, the Chernobyl Study Abroad program has been known for making students feel just that way.

Here are 8 reasons why studying abroad in Chernobyl will ruin you for life.

1) Chernobyl is just a short drive from Pripyat. Like all the coolest towns in Ukraine, Pripyat is completely abandoned.

2) Think the MSE bathrooms while everyone has the late-night coffee-poops are crazy? Once you and your friends’ gastrointestinal linings start to shed, the MSE bathrooms will seem MSEmpty.

3) If you actually pay attention in your Chernobyl History class, you won’t be able to stop talking about how important it is that the graphite moderator of the nuclear reactor NEVER come into contact with oxygen.

4) Come to the Chernobyl City Hall with a curiosity for local politics; leave with a significantly higher chance of developing thyroid cancer.

5) Radiation poisoning!

6) Q: What city was chosen for Ukraine’s very first nuclear plant? A: If you guessed Baltimore, you’re wrong. It’s Chernobyl.

7) Between the radiation-solyanka, the radiation-zelenyj borshch, and the radiation-yushka, you won’t eat soup the same way again.

8) You will live for three years maximum.