Comments on: Change Your Life: Study Abroad

By: summer

summer — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:39:25 +0000

I just got back from a semester abroad studying Arabic language at a school in Damascus Syria that I highly recommend. tolearnarabic.com. The prices were much more reasonable than the schools I looked at in Jordan IMHO, and the quality was excellent. Regardless, I totally agree. A semester abroad is great! Get out of the house (and away from the parents) for a while. :&)

By: Kristina

Kristina — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:27:03 +0000

I work in international organization in Russia which deals with enrollment students to the medical and engineering Universities of Russia and Ukraine. I saw a lot of foreign students who came there and passed their courses with getting Degree. And I can write that life in foreign country really changes people. I saw it many times. Students begin to understand themselves better as they face with new traditions, with new culture, new emotions and experience. They look into new soul of new country and find out their personal soul in it, find themselves. Students compare their native country and country where they study. They can find good and worth sides and use it in personal experience as patience to demerits of other people, respect to foreigners, test of feelings to native friends and relatives, capability to overcome difficult situations and many other pointsâ€¦ All of it is useful. All of it is real life full of expressions and new experience.

By: Jul

Jul — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:54:18 +0000

I had spend approximately zero time abroad before my junior year of college, which I spent in Bologna, Italy. Since then, I have spent more years in Europe than in the US. Going on eight years of European life, and I’m wondering whether I’ll ever move back to the US again…

By: Mandi

Mandi — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:33:47 +0000

I didn’t study abroad, but I did work for an AIDS organization in Uganda for a year after college. Although I’d already done quite a bit of traveling through Europe and Central America in my adolescence and university years, living in Uganda was a transformative experience in many many way. And it definitely focused my career aspirations towards international public health. It also eased me into three months spent working in Sierra Leone a few years later.

And now I’m looking forward to moving to Germany in the summer for a year-long research fellowship — which I’m sure will be a wholly different and challenging experience too!

By: LJ

LJ — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:29:17 +0000

It might sound cliche, but it is soooo true. I studied my senior year in college for a summer in Spain, and it was a really life-altering experience. I had visited abroad, but nothing compares with living life there as a *true* local (like those fabulous Amsterdam bikes). Knowing the language and approaching the locals from that angle makes for a totally different experience.

I think the experience showed me all that there is to love about a bigger city. All it can stand to offer. I think something like this allows you to learn to rely on yourself in a different way and for me coming from a smallish city, to either decide to embrace the big city or to cling to the idea to return back to what you’ve known for so long.

By: DefenseEngineer

DefenseEngineer — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:05:51 +0000

3 months in Germany when I was 16/17. One day on a public street, I was talking to some of my German friends (in my horrible German). An eldery lady standing nearby recognized my American accent, came over to me, hugged me, and started crying without a word. Shocked and confused, I just stood there for a minute while she hugged me. She then explained that during WWII, she was a child in Eastern Germany. She continued explaining that if it were not for the Americans air dropping food into Eastern Germany, her and her family would never have survived. Since then, she thanks every American she meets.

That was almost 13 years ago. I often look back at that encounter and wonder what happened to her. I wish I would have taken more time then to talk to her. But I was a young teenager at the time that simply didn’t understand the gravity of what she was trying to tell me.

Now, I have experienced a war zone first hand. I’ve seen how it affects citizens caught in the middle. Her comments rang in my head the entire 6 months I was in Afghanistan.

By: Kate

Kate — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:06:45 +0000

Hey! Amanda and I went to the same college. In the US, I mean.

By: Surfergrrl

Surfergrrl — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:12:41 +0000

When i was 29 i decided I had to finally get to europe before i turned 30. I went 2 weeks by myself, and I was scared to death. but i had a blast and it was a great confidence booster becuase I did it all by myself.

By: RA

RA — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:10:26 +0000

I did a five-week winter session over in London, and it was great. I was not quite as immersed as I would have been during a full semester, but I had such a blast reading British fiction, seeing plays, and spending a weekend in Scotland. It’s so prohibitively expensive to travel overseas now, so I’m really glad that I did it. I wish I had had a better camera then!

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:23:32 +0000

Study abroad was THE defining experience of my life. I went through the Long Island University Global College. I did a nine-month comparative religion and culture program that took me to Taiwan, India, Thailand, Nepal, and Turkey. I spent all of the next year in China.

I seriously would not be the person I am today without those experiences. I’m from a very small, very WASPy, very non-diverse town in the mountains. My eyes were opened in more ways than I could describe in a year of blog posts.

My program was through a private school and I’ll probably be paying for it for the next 15 years, but I would recommend it for anyone, no matter what the cost.