Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Why Study Abroad?


10 good reasons to Study in a Foreign Country?

‘Studying Abroad’ has always been allured the aspiring students who actually want to give their career a radical move.  Such decision not only opens thousands avenues for higher education but makes an individual capable of facing and resolving the global issues; builds a lifetime commitment to the self-esteem, self-determination and social values. However, the main benefits of studying abroad can be summarized as follows:
1. Growth: Students learn a lot more about themselves in that one semester than they did in the three and a half years in their home school because of the unique space in which they learn, experience and spend exploring another culture. Study abroad leads to long-lasting friendships with other students and impacts current relationships.
2. Develop skills and gain experience a classroom setting will never provide: Being immersed in an entirely new cultural setting is exciting. It’s an opportunity to discover new strengths and abilities, conquer new challenges, and solve new problems. You will encounter situations that are wholly unfamiliar to you and will learn to adapt and respond in effective ways.
3. The opportunity to break out of your academic routine: You can become familiar with an entirely new academic system and you will have the chance to take courses not offered on your home campus. It’s also a great opportunity to break out the monotony of the routine you follow semester after semester.
4. Expand your worldview: Students normally tend to be uninformed about the world beyond the nation’s boundaries. Students who study abroad return home with an informed and much less biased perspective toward other cultures and peoples.
5. Enhance the value of your degree: While abroad, you can take courses you would never have had the opportunity to take on your home campus. In addition, study abroad gives your language skills such a boost that it is normally quite easy to add a minor in a language or even a second major without having to take many more additional courses after the return to your home campus.
6. Learn about yourself: The experience abroad often challenges students to reconsider their own beliefs and values. The experience may perhaps strengthen those values or it may cause students to alter or abandon them and embrace new concepts and perceptions. The encounter with other cultures enables students to see their own culture through new eyes.
7. Enhance employment opportunities: Through an employer’s eyes, a student who has studied abroad is self-motivated, independent, willing to embrace challenges, and able to cope with diverse problems and situations. Your experience living and studying in a foreign country, adjusting to another culture, and acquiring a foreign language will all set you apart from the majority of other job applicants.
8. A Lifetime of benefits: With study abroad offering so many life-changing and enduring academic, career, intercultural, personal, and social benefits, students should carefully consider studying abroad when searching for a college/ university. In addition, colleges, parents, and employers should encourage and enable students to study abroad.
9.  Education and career attainment: When questioned about academic pursuits, 87 percent of respondents said that study abroad influenced subsequent educational experiences, 63 percent said that it influenced their decision to expand or change academic majors, and 64 percent reported that it influenced their decision to attend graduate school. Nearly half of all respondents have engaged in international work or volunteerism since studying abroad.
10. Longer stay – greater benefits: Conventional wisdom in the study abroad field has been that “more is better”—the longer students study abroad, the more significant the academic and cultural development and personal growth benefits. Students will be successful in producing important academic, inter- and intra-personal, career, and intercultural development outcomes.