How long will you stay?

October 16, 11:19 PMBoston Study Abroad ExaminerMolly Griffin

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Boston Study Abroad Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollyawesome/ / CC BY 2.0

When it comes to picking a program for study abroad, you have to have an idea of how long you'll stay, and there can be quite a range.  The average college student goes for either the fall or spring semester, but many are allowed the full year while some only have a few weeks to spare in the summer.

There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to the time frame, and as it is called study abroad, we might as well pick that as our starting point.  What does your major require over the four years?  Arts students tend to have more lenient course requirements with no pre-set order in which classes need to be taken, so going abroad interferes less.  But science and technical students often run into trouble.  If you still have a number of required courses to take, be sure to talk to your program advisor about this problem immediately.  Technical studies also may not accept credit for relevant classes taken at foreign universities because your college can't know whether the courses live up to your college's standards.  For very stringent studies, take heart: your college may already offer opportunities for you to go abroad.  Wentworth Institute of Technology, for example, offers a semester program in its Architecture department.

If you still can't seem to find any way around staying at your own college during the academic year, don't forget the summer.  Most colleges offers summer programs that may be good for satisfying a course requirement or for credit, and if they don't, external programs most certainly do.  Summer programs may last anywhere from two weeks to the full June-August span.  For the most part, they involve one or two classes, which may be taught by your college or a foreign university, but generally the focus is seeing the country.  Going for a summer tends to put the students in a great state of mind: it's like an extended vacation, with a bit of extra work but plenty of time to explore.  Your college will often organize trips for you and your peers to do some local traveling.

Summer is also the perfect time for younger, budding world travelers to throw on their backpacks and get a leg up on college.  AIFS Summer Advantage, for instance, offers high school students 4- to 5-week programs in China, England, France, Italy, Russia, and Spain.

A semester abroad, on the other hand, is much more academically focused because your college expects you to return with proportionate grades.  And if you've ever sat through weeks of boring classes before, you know: a semester can feel like a very long time.  But, take note: in Europe, many universities don't start their years until October.  Three months later, you've finally gotten over most of the jitters and bam: Christmas.  A lot of students hate going home at this point because they've finally settled in, and actually many choose to stay for the next semester.

Some study abroad programs either offer one semester or two for a university, or else you have no choice but to go for the full year because the university you've chosen operates on something like a trimester system.  A full academic year abroad is a huge decision, because that means at least eight months away from home, friends, college, your bed, your dog, your car... you'll miss all of it, a lot, especially at the beginning.  After all, think about a year from now: it's hard to imagine where you'll be.  But assuming you've survived being away from home for at least freshman year already, you're better prepared for this than you think.  Friends may gawk and say you're crazy for going somewhere for that long, but take my personal testimony for it: I went abroad to Dublin for eight months then decided to stay June, July, and August as well, so nonexistant was my homesickness by this point.  If you think that maybe, possibly somewhere inside you there's a part of you that could handle being away from America for that long, then do not rule out a year of study.

Note: For now we are mainly talking about current college students studying abroad.  Later on we will look at the options for those who want to spend their full four years overseas, or those interested in international grad school.