Studying abroad provides a great experience for a student who is adventurous and ambitious. Choosing whether or not to study in another country can be a daunting decision. It is always too easy to come up with reasons why you should not do something that is challenging like this, but this article outlines seven outstanding benefits that you could get from the experience of studying abroad.
Broaden Your Horizons
The world is a big place and most people only ever get to see the tiniest mote of it. Once you graduate and start working, limited vacation time and resources make it even harder to see the world. By studying abroad, you not only get to visit some faraway land but by living there, you truly get to experience your host country, its culture and sample everything that it has to offer.
Immersion in a totally new culture is a great way to become an open-minded person with a balanced worldview. Understanding different places are the first step to understanding different people.
Improve Your Language Skills
Fluency in another language is always a useful skill to have in your toolkit. It can be useful in all kind of unpredictable ways, both professionally and personally. Total immersion is the most effective way to master a language and that means living with the daily usage of this language for a significant amount of time. Learning to navigate your day-to-day life in a foreign language will ensure that you have a firm grasp and the confidence to use this language for the rest of your life.
Completing your studies in this language will make you not just fluent, but give you expert mastery of the language.
New Career Opportunities in your Host Country
Once you live in a new country for a while, you might start to set down roots. An established romantic relationship, close friendships, or professional networks might make your home country more enticing than the idea of going home again once you have graduated.
Having already lived and studied in this country will give you a significant advantage in the job market when the time comes to start applying for jobs. Perhaps you might even find some niche opportunities completely unlike the professional industry in your field of study back home. Applying to a job as a local resident makes you a much more likely candidate than someone applying from out of the country.
Unique Skills for your Home Country
An education from another country might mean you had opportunities for topics of study that your peers in your home country did not. When you return home and start looking for work, you may find you have unique skills that make you stand out from the crowd. If nothing else, the experience of having studied abroad can make you a more interesting candidate on the basis that you can bring a unique perspective to the job. Having an understanding of your field of study in another country can also be useful to employers and bringing that knowledge with you might just make you the ideal candidate.
Great Interpersonal Skills
Being able to get along with people from all walks of life is an essential skill for anyone hoping to establish a long-term and respected career in almost any field. Living with a language barrier in the long-term can make you much more concise and unambiguous in how you express your thoughts. Having to relate with people from a background so different from your own can also give you a much greater sense of empathy, a necessary skill for anyone hoping to move upwards in their career by one day managing other people.
In short, you learn to relate to other people more adeptly than you otherwise may have, had you not studied abroad.
Vast Contact Network
Every contact you make in your host country, be they professional, personal or academic is another node in your contact network. They are potential sources of new information and ideas or could even just be lifelong friends. Having a vast contact network can be useful for a lot of reasons. Professionals to call on with a unique perspective or knowledge set may help you in your career. Having academic contacts in another country could also help you gain some much-needed perspective on particular projects. Maintaining these contacts could also make it much easier for you to move internationally again one day, whether you return to your host country or go somewhere else entirely. It makes you part of a global community.
Generate More Interest in your Grad School Applications
If the time comes that you decide you would like to pursue further education through graduate study programs, sometimes it is tough to stand out from a sea of qualified applicants and get that coveted spot in your dream grad school program.
An enriched education that was gained in a foreign country might just be the edge you need to get ahead. Tired of reading the same, boring application essays gets tiresome, but yours might really stand out when you make reference to the unique experiences you had during your studies in another country. Even references from your academic contacts in your host country may also make your application more distinguishable from the rest.
These are only seven of the myriad benefits to be found in pursuing post-secondary education through studying abroad. It is always easier to take the path of least resistance and studying abroad is certainly a big challenge, but the reasons for doing it are substantial.
The best part of all is that, just like the incredible memories you could make during your studies in a foreign country, these benefits will be with you forever, no matter where you end up in life. When the challenges are greatest, so to are the rewards. Instead of telling yourself why you should not pursue this dream, maybe consider what other benefits you could add to this list.
