IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING ABROAD
Studying abroad provides many advantages students can gain, such as:
- Broadening world views and ways of thinking by experiencing different cultures firsthand.
- Benefiting students with future career opportunities by providing more life experiences and personal connections.
- Complementing and accelerating fluency in speaking, reading, and writing foreign languages.
- Providing an alternative academic experience by taking courses not offered elsewhere while earning credits towards graduation.
- Providing opportunities for leadership development through interactions with different cultures.
- Providing opportunities for personal growth and development by gaining self confidence and life experience.
With an increasingly globalized world, studying abroad is now more important than ever. If you’re considering studying abroad, here are eight ways it can benefit you:
Improved Language Skills
By studying abroad, you’ll have the opportunity to hone your language skills. While studying a language in class is rewarding, applying it to the real world is an entirely different experience. It’s likely you’ll learn the language faster because you’re practicing it regularly. You’ll also be able to pick up conversational language you wouldn’t study in class, enabling you to speak like a local.
Experience a Different Style of Teaching
Each country has its own unique style of teaching. Studying abroad can help you expand your academic horizon and develop the capacity to adapt to various educational settings.
Adapting to different styles of teaching can also help you adjust to different management styles, making you more versatile in the workplace. Teaching styles you may encounter abroad include:
- Authority Style: A teacher-centered style where a professor is the authority figure and frequently gives long lectures or one-way presentations. There is a focus on set rules and expectations, and students typically take notes to retain information.
- Facilitator Style: Professors promote self-learning by emphasizing the teacher-student relationship. They help students develop critical thinking skills by teaching them how to ask questions and find solutions through exploration.
- Delegator Style: Professors assign lab activities and give students in-class projects to help them stay engaged. This is a guided learning style that places the teacher in an observer role while helping students remain active participants in their learning.
Impress Employers
Studying abroad can help launch your career and make you more competitive in the workforce. It gives you the opportunity to show future and current employers that you have the open mind, resourcefulness, and drive needed to adapt to a different environment.
Many employers are looking for graduates who have international experience. According to a recent survey, 64 percent of employers consider study abroad experience to be important, and 92 percent of employers look for transferable skills that are typically gained from the experience, such as flexibility to new challenges.
“Students who study abroad offer more to the workplace than those who don’t,” Lombardi says. “They offer a fuller package than just a student who’s looked at how things are theoretically, as opposed to students who have the opportunity to apply the concepts in their studies to real jobs and experiences across various cultures.”
Enhanced Network
Studying abroad helps you build invaluable relationships with people from all over the world. You broaden your international connections while having the opportunity to meet people that could turn into life-long friends. Some connections can even lead to career opportunities, including internships, job offers, and business partners.
The university where you study will often have a large community of students from local regions and abroad, giving you the opportunity to meet people from different backgrounds and cultures. The wider your network, the greater the likelihood you’ll be connected to exciting career and social opportunities.
Learn About New Cultures and Perspectives
Your experience with a different culture allows you to expand your worldview. By studying abroad, you’ll learn about new perspectives and develop a cross-cultural awareness.
For example, you may work with people from other countries at your next job. By studying abroad, you’ll be more comfortable with people from different backgrounds, value their unique experiences, and establish a stronger relationship with them.
Oftentimes, our cultural background has a huge impact on how we react to different situations. Gaining a variety of perspectives can help you look at experiences in an entirely new way. By studying abroad, you’ll meet people with different upbringings, helping you widen your horizon and broaden your mind.
In addition, the best way to experience another culture is to immerse yourself in it, and the ideal way to do that is by living in another country.
Develop Your Confidence
By immersing yourself in another culture, you develop valuable life skills needed for personal growth, including independence and adaptability. These skills can give you an added boost of confidence in your personal and professional life.
Studying abroad can be overwhelming, but the challenges you overcome can help you become a more mature person. You’ll find out that you can often thrive in new, unexpected circumstances, and you’ll boost your communication skills by speaking a new language—helping you further improve your self-confidence.
“It’s a great opportunity to work on cultural competencies, like being sensitive to other cultures, learning how to adapt to new situations, and tolerating ambiguity,” Lombardi says. “These skills are important to almost any job.”
Quickly adapting to your new environment will hone your self-reliance and resilience. From small tasks, like going to the doctor, to larger issues, like learning how to negotiate with a professor or adapt to a different culture’s management styles, your daily life can help you become a more capable person.
Studying abroad can also help you gain more confidence by improving certain skills that help you connect with others, such as:
- Leadership: Strong leadership and team management skills are important within almost any environment. Knowing how to lead and inspire the people around you can help you establish stronger relationships, whether you’re working on a class project with a group of international students or completing an internship abroad.
- Communication Skills: Strong written, public speaking, and negotiation skills are important to communicating effectively, particularly in an unfamiliar environment like a new country.
- Cross-Cultural Awareness: Our experiences, values, and cultural backgrounds guide our viewpoints and actions. Studying abroad reminds you to be cognizant of others’ perspectives. Remember that what is considered appropriate in one culture can be inappropriate in another.
See the World
Studying abroad allows you to see the world and travel to new places you would otherwise not have visited. During your time away from your studies, you can go sightseeing in your new city. You’ll also get to know your region more intimately than if you were just visiting for a shorter period of time.
When studying abroad, you can also visit neighboring regions and countries, as you’re not limited to one place. For example, if you’re studying in Milan, you can visit Florence or explore the Tuscan countryside by train. With international budget airlines and travel deals, exploring the world is becoming increasingly more affordable.
Your newfound connections can also show you areas that a tourist otherwise wouldn’t experience.
Discover Career Opportunities Abroad
Studying in a new country exposes you to increased career opportunities, depending on your field of study. If you’re interested in finance, consider studying in a region such as London or Hong Kong—two cities well known for business. If you’re interested in tech, then look into Berlin or Tel Aviv.
International education promotes global learning, fosters understanding among groups from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and develops globally minded individuals.
“Being able to take all of what we’re learning, focus it in the classroom, and apply it out into the field and world is amazing,” Lombardi says. “All students should take advantage of this incredible opportunity.
Cross-Cultural Communication is Key
Not everyone is comfortable working in an international environment or with people who have different beliefs and priorities in life. Before you study abroad, you might consider yourself open-minded. But pushing yourself to study abroad will put this self-perception to the test. You'll move to a country where you'll become the odd-one-out for your cultural practices. With any luck, you'll make friends and acquaintances who will be as curious as you are about your differences and make the effort to overcome them.
By the time your studies are finished, you'll have more awareness and appreciation about diversity which will be a tremendous asset in your career, as well as your life in general. Making professional relationships will be easier and you will be more attuned to strengths you might have just seen as differences before your time abroad.
Latvian student Anastasija Timoseva who studied abroad in the Netherlands views this aspect of studying abroad as the most valuable for her career. "I learned in the Netherlands that we all see the world through different viewpoints. Instead of battling that, I learned how to gather different points of views to build something bigger together. I use this in my career today to tackle bigger problems in the smartest way."
Even if you study abroad in a country that speaks a language you are fluent in, you are guaranteed to use different expressions and pronounce words differently. Studying abroad will teach you how to read your audience, searching their face for cues that you've said something incomprehensible, and quickly clarifying your meaning.
Start to Work Independently
When you move away from your home country, you leave a lot of support systems that you perhaps weren't even aware you had and you'll be forced to solve problems by yourself.
Whether it's figuring out how to sign up for classes when your new university's registration system crashes, making your budget stretch in a city that's far more expensive than your own, or negotiating with a landlord for the first time, you'll be depending on yourself to solve challenges from time to time.
This brand of maturity you get from studying abroad will transfer to your first professional job as you take initiative to independently accomplish tasks and give your manager confidence in your abilities, thus demonstrating another career-boosting benefit of studying abroad.
Convinced?
Now that you've seen the benefits that a year (or more) abroad can offer you professionally, it's time to begin the journey. Take a look at our catalogue of study abroad programs from all around the world. Start a conversation with us. That’s a good beginning.
