Study Abroad Programmes

[Tom]

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone on the forum ever did a year during university to study abroad? I'm finally taking the time to go to university this year and I'm stuck on whether or not to have a year studying abroad or not.

If you have any experiences, good or bad, please share them with me to aid in my decision! Any experiences with finance in the like would be great, too.

If you don't have any experience please don't post with "I've never studied abroad" as it's pointless posting as it doesn't meet the subject of the original post.

Thanks in advance guys!

[dbgtz]

Skynus finally going to uni after being in college for 5 years?!

Not sure if this is what you're looking for exactly, but I considered doing a year abroad before but I can barely afford to go to uni in this country let alone another. I'm sure someone else will ask, but what is it you're studying and where is it you plan on going? You will obviously need to know the language of the country to a fair degree (though it should also be a chance to learn the language).

[abc]

Okay this will be long but you probably knew that as I have spent the last 30 minutes trying to persuade you to do it.

Having studied abroad in USA for a year, I will list out all of the pros and cons.

Depending on what the university is offering, you will have three options:

a) Study Abroad for either a semester or full academic year
b) Placement for a semester or full academic year
c) Do nothing and do you three/four years of degree, graduate and work for the rest of your life till the day you die.

Most universities - including the one you will be attending - will give you the option to change your degree after the 1st year. This is because as you may be aware the first year does not normally count towards your overall degree classification. Therefore I strongly suggest that at this stage you choose your programme with Study Abroad option rather than placement option. I say this because due to the high demand of study abroad, it is very difficult to change to a study abroad programme at a later date. You need to bear in mind that a exchange programme is literally an exchange - you go to the host country and someone from there comes to your university. So your university is likely to choose students on the basis of who applied first and grades. This is from personal experience as many of my friends chose to do placement when they chose their degree, but when they tried to change to the Study Abroad option later on, they couldn't as it is always in high demand. You can always switch to a placement degree as you are applying for the placement yourself and there is no limit on how many students can do it (unlike exchange depends on how many students the other universities are sending to your university).

So the above is very important to bear in mind when choosing your degree option in the next few weeks. Now on to the second part - why Study Abroad over Placement.

A placement is basically working for a company. You get paid which is great as a student but you need to bear in mind that when you graduate, all you will do is work, work and some more work. Yes this experience may assist you when you apply for jobs as it will give you some advantage over other applicants who didn't do a placement. However, a study abroad student is always more desirable for many reasons. A) you are more culturally aware of your surroundings, B) it demonstrates you can be independent, C) companies are now looking for students with a wide range of experience rather than just professional experience related to that field. There are hundred more reasons which you can find on Google but I wanted to just give you a quick summary to ensure this post is as short as possible.

Finances.
It depends on which country you go to. I went to USA, so I had to pay for:
a) Medical Insurance - even if you had your own third party insurance, USA universities make you purchase their university insurance. Most - if not all - universities have their own medical facilities on campus and this insurance covers your medical expenses 100%. Whereas if you were to go to a hospital or a non-university medical centre, you would pay the first $150, and then 20% of the bill. The insurance will then pay for the remaning 80%. However for campus medical centers, you pay zero. This was approx $800 I think per semester/year - I cannot remember.
b) Accommodation - STAY ON CAMPUS. This allows you to connect very quickly with other students. All universities have different policies on this. You say you wanted to go to Australia - a friend of mine who studied there had zero support from the Australian University and they didn't offer him on-campus accommodation so he had to find a flat. This was in Melbourne. While in contrast, my USA university guaranteed all exchange students on-campus accommodation which is cheaper. Cost varies from universities and countries but you should budget a few thousand pounds.
c) Flight costs vary from £800-£1200.
d) Food plans. USA universities offer meal plans on campus which is approx $1,600 - $3,000 per year.

The above is your basic costs. Then you need to factor in costs if you want to socialise and travel which you will do. I can tell you now, my USA exchange year cost me approx £12,000. But this is because I travelled literally every weekend - from Boston, to New York, to Las Vegas, to Miami for Spring Break. Basically the whole country. It was more of a holiday ;) BUT during my time, the government was offering a £6,000 grant to exchange students. So of my own money it cost me £6,000 (and this included all costs including visa costs, flights, travel, medical insurance, accommodation etc). The grant basically covers all costs which are not avoidable. This meant I couldn't spend my own savings on whatever I wanted as the essential costs were all paid for. I know the Tories new budget this year has planned major cuts to student grants and will be replacing them with loans so it will be worth researching this.

Okay so if the finances scared you, hopefully the below will make you want to do it again:

IT WILL BE THE BEST SEMESTER/YEAR OF YOUR LIFE. You will meet people who will still be your friends when you are 60. You will have connections all over the world. You will be able to travel to almost every country in the world and have a free place to stay. You will get to travel which is very hard to do when you start working. You are young, go explore the world, go see different culture, discover yourself, gain more confidence, try new things. Because once you start your work life, all of this will become very difficult. Even if you think you have no desire or the flare to want to travel, once you start you will not want to stop. There are so many crazy things and experiences you can have as an exchange student which you will not be able to do once you are all grown up. When you go to job interviews, you will automatically be more desirable than the guy who did a placement, and you will have so many things to say about yourself due to this experience who many people will not be able to. You will be able to link competency questions to your experiences abroad which will be more interesting than people who just do a placement or nothing at all.

I mean how can someone turn down saying no to travelling to New York, spending Spring Break in MIAMI, hiking up and down the grand canyon and camping there for several nights, taking crazy road trips to different cities, meeting so many amazing new people, learning so much about that country and culture and more importantly, really making friends for life.

I have missed so many things but it is because if I could repeat my student abroad experience, I would do it without hesitation and not a single person who studied abroad in my university would say anything different. You may get home sick, but just come back for Christmas, and then when you return, you will forget all about it. But if you do decide to do it, please make the most of it and do not do what a small minority of people (literally four people out of 150) did at my host university - and that is sit in their room all day and watch TV. If that is what you plan to do then you may as well not go.

I know you are probably thinking "wow this guy just went insane in his post" but if you do study abroad and make the most of it, I can guarantee that you would be typing a similar post later on in your life when someone else asks if they should study abroad. All of my friends from USA still keep in touch, we meet regularly all over Europe and get to stay for free. Currently several of my friends are meeting in Montpellier and staying at a friends house. Sadly I couldn't join them due to prior commitments. But I travelled to Amsterdam last year - total trip cost 150 euros for a week. Cheap tickets. Free accommodation. Free travel. Free local knowledge. I traveled to Milan - total trip cost 90 Euros for the same reason.

In this day and age, networking and connections ARE vital. And this is the best opportunity you will get at it. I developed so much as a person while my year there, I learnt so much about other people, myself and how best to react to various situations. I am definitely a better and more informed person due to that year. I used to be shy before USA, now I am not. Before I couldn't give a speech in front of a class, now I can happily give a speech to a lecture hall.

Enjoy and I seriously hope you decide to do it, for your own sake.

[Alysha]

A person I knew did a semester abroad rather than a year, because the cost is a bit excessive. She went to Norway and had to be so strict with her budget because things were more expensive than she thought. It was a massive struggle financially, but she absolutely loved it out there.

I looked into doing a year in America, but again finance was the issue, you rarely manage to get any extra student finance, and flights alone can be a burden. Accommodation is also something you had to source yourself completely, so without being out there to begin with, it's a hard task.

I think it's a great thing to do if you can afford it and if there's a good university support set up, I'd take the opportunity. Each country, university and course is different, but the likelihood is that it'd be a fabulous experience that you'd never forget.

[abc]

It isn't letting me add to my previous post but I must state that the support I had from my host university (the American one) was second to none. The exchange department there were excellent and the coordinators did everything they could to help you. Many people told me other universities (including my own university!) were terrible in terms of communication and coordination. This girl coming to my UK university from France told me my university used to reply so slow to her. Where my USA one would always reply to me within a few hours and when we got there (150 of us!!!) the woman had memorised ALL of our names (how the hell she memories 150 foreign names from facebook is insane!). We all ended up buying her lots of presents when we left so show her our appreciation. If any of us ever ended up in hospital, she would come and stay and be very supportive. Not all universities do this, so it is worth looking in to how good the host universities are when choosing your options.

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On my original post

*This meant I couldn't spend my own savings on whatever I wanted as the essential costs were all paid for.

amend above to

*This meant I could spend my own savings on whatever I wanted as the essential costs were all paid for.

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on my original post

*I mean how can someone turn down saying no to travelling

amend to

*I mean how can someone turn down travelling

[abc]

BTW TO ANY BRITISH 18-25 YEAR OLDS WANTING TO TRAVEL FOR FREE
Read: http://www.habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=828096

Fantastic opportunity which shouldn't be missed. Come volunteer in Tanzania with me!!

[Tom]

Thanks to everyone that's posted, it's much appreciated :)

[Yawn]

I've never studied abroad

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for real tho sounds v interesting snr i liked reading ur post