Me (in the middle) with a few friends backpacking through Vienna, Austria!
Have you ever wanted to try something new? To jet to France, Peru, Hungary, or England and experience the world while still in college? Studying abroad is popular amongst college students. It provides the opportunity to immerse oneself in a new culture, try a different education system, meet new people, potentially learn a new language, and more. Many college students opt to go for only one semester of their college career. That way, they can still experience a taste of the world but not give up too much of their college experience, right?
Well, I’m here to give you five reasons why you should opt to go for a year– no matter how scary it seems!
1. Become a resident: If you want to be apart of your host country–and not just an extended visitor or tourist–you have to devote the time necessary to becoming one. In both the city and university at which you’re studying, the students and people who live there aren’t going to view you as someone legitimately trying to absorb their culture if you are just stopping by for a few months. You will be able to navigate your town/ city and country so much more by the end of the second semester. You’ll have a favorite cafe, bar, park, and spot to study. And most importantly, you’ll be able to call it home.
2. Make lasting friendships: Imagine your freshman year of college. Now imagine at the end of one semester, you had to leave. Wouldn’t you be so much less close to your friends than you were after a year? Wouldn’t you have missed out on so many opportunities to meet more people? You’d be shocked by how much more even one friendship can develop by spending another semester there. Not to mention, the students of your host country aren’t as likely to open up to you if you’re just a visitor. But if you’re a resident, like them, they’ll want a real friendship with you too!
3. Learn a new language: I studied abroad for the year at Oxford University in England so this doesn’t apply to me, but I can guarantee, from many of my friends who studied in Italy, Spain, Sri Lanka, and more, that staying the full year makes all the difference in attaining fluency. They noticed a remarkable difference in their ability and confidence from the end of their first semester and by the end of the year. If you’re going abroad to learn a new language, you have to go for the whole she-bang.
4. Your home college will still be waiting for you, I promise: Do you experience FOMO (“Fear Of Missing Out”) like me? I was petrified to give up a quarter of my college career to ship off to England. Why would I give up something I knew so well for something I could potentially hate? But here’s something to think about. You’ll always know what you’ll be missing at home. You know the clubs, the friends, the parties, the football games. And yes, that’s hard to give up. But you’ll never know what you’d be missing in Dublin or Paris or Florence. And, speaking from experience, your college will be just the same as you left and ready to welcome you again with open arms. The only FOMO going on will be by your friends who will endlessly stalk your Facebook pictures
5. You need time to adjust: Moving to a new country and going to a new school takes time to adjust, and that amount of time varies for everyone. If it takes you a full month or two to find your place and get used to everything, imagine leaving shortly thereafter? A year seems daunting, I know, especially if you’re unhappy when you first get there (I was!). But you need the time after you adjust to truly live. And plus- you never know what activities, events, and opportunities are waiting for you in the upcoming months. Don’t waste that opportunity!
Here’s a bunch of us before we went to an Oxford ball (that’s right, a ball!) at St. Hugh’s College. I would have never been able to go had I only gone for half a year!
Lovelies, are you thinking about study abroad? What would you make want to — or not want to — go for a year?
guest
I studied in Prague for one summer three years ago – it was only 7 weeks total, but still a worthwhile experience. I learned a decent amount of Czech in my brief time abroad and I was able to absorb a lot of the culture in that time too (it helped that I’m Slovak). In my study abroad I was also able to see Vienna and Frankfurt, as well as a number of other Czech cities.
Do I wish I had studied abroad longer? Sometimes yes, but I was involved in many different clubs at my home college and I loved every single moment with those clubs, so I am happy with it just having been for a summer.
ranunculus / 3457 posts
I think that a semester abroad isn’t enough to really get to know a country well and become a loca.
guest
These reasons are great! In our 3rd year, it is encouraged for students to study abroad! If only I had the money to..
daffodil / 1615 posts
@AimeeFrying@xanga - Yeah I see a lot of friends and people at my school studying abroad, and it must be nice being able to afford things like that without really working. I could do it, but I don’t want to graduate $50,000 in debt because I wanted to go to school in another country for a year.
guest
@ask_ashleyyy@xanga - Actually, studying abroad isn’t nearly that expensive. Many colleges have exchange programs in dozens of countries where your tuition at your home school is applied abroad, which means all you’re really responsible for is room, food, and miscellaneous purchases. They help you find affordable housing and with most reputable study abroad programs, you have the advantage of English-speaking staff in case you ever need help with stuff like filing immigration documents, buying a cell phone, using the local transportation system, etc. Even if your college doesn’t have a reciprocal program, if you have a study abroad office and the staff is decently knowledgeable, which is highly likely, they can help you find a country/program where you’ll pay the same as you would here. Lastly, federal financial aid can be used for study abroad and there are also grants and scholarships available, either funded directly by your home institution or other organizations, whether private or non-profit. One just has to take advantage of the resources available.
Source: I studied abroad for six months in Japan and I volunteered as a study abroad peer advisor at my school’s study abroad office.
guest
By the way, great post! I’m glad to see more students encouraging their peers to study abroad. Also, surprisingly enough, only about 2 to 3 percent of college students end up studying abroad, but that number has been slowly increasing over the past few years.
That said, though I think a year is a great amount of time to study abroad, it’s generally not financially feasible for most students. I tell people to go for at least a semester because summer programs are much too short. 4 to 6 months is much better than 7 weeks, IMO.
guest
The problem for MANY people doing the whole year is falling behind in academics. I am very lucky I could even go on semester without having to pick up summer courses and an extra semester. I had two friends who went to China, then opted to stay for the whole year. I know they both have no regrets, but this was their senior year and they came back and needed to stay 2 more semester to graduate. So one graduated in 5 years, the other in 5 and a half. I think this is what prevents a lot of people from going the whole year.
I unfortunately couldn’t even if I REALLY wanted to, because I studied abroad in Cairo, Egypt and the revolution happened a few weeks after I got back.
guest
@ask_ashleyyy@xanga - It was actually about the same for me to study abroad because my tuition was cheaper at my abroad university and so was pretty much everything so the extra cost of my plane ticket was offset. But I went to Egypt, while most people rather go to Europe. There are tons of scholarships out there, though, and I know a lot of schools have tuition exchange programs (where you pay the same tuition abroad) and where your scholarships and fin aid carrying over.
guest
YES YES YES YES as soon as I saw the title of this post I was already advocating for it ahahahah. I spent a semester in Paris and at the end of it I DESPERATELY wished I could have stayed for a year. Mind you, I went there during spring semester so I guess that was already too late, and also I know I wouldn’t be able to graduate on time had I gone for a year…but still, best 4 months of my life–only wished it lasted longer!
daisy / 680 posts
@MoonFaeEyryan@xanga - I think the author Liz felt the same way too, so her post is all about staying a full year.
I definitely felt like one semester wasn’t long enough to really immerse myself in the culture and language so ended up staying a year when I studied abroad.