Study Abroad Advice/Tales of Your Experience

sac
Mon, 24 Jan 2005 18:26:21 +0000

lizschup – I spent a year in England oh so long ago and, on the same program, my daughter spent a year in Italy. It is definitely worth doing. I envy your son his upcoming experience(s). What I loved about it was that it made me question so many things we take for granted, even little things like how tickets are collected on the bus, or how our stores are organized, or what we put on tv, to bigger things such as how much of our time we devote to work and how we absorb different cultures. There are so many different ways to do things in the world. My daughter also loved it, of course, because she learned a language and got to eat all that wonderful food!

My advice would be for your son to do the longer program if possible. I actually recommend a full year, if available. But at least the semester program will be in an English speaking country (sort of:) ) so he can adapt quickly. It’s just that at some point you switch from being a tourist to feeling part of the country (and resenting the tourists, just like the natives:) The other advice would be to live with the non-American students if possible and not to get isolated in a miniature version of his college transplanted overseas. This depends on the program, but I always feel it is a shame for students to travel so far only to take classes with professors from home, with students from home, and live in a building owned by the university from home.

I don’t remember his field of study, but I’ve heard that for students in the sciences, it’s good to save some general ed requirements to take abroad, because it is more difficult to find matching science sequences. But I’m sure he will get advising on that. Hope that helps!