So You Want to Study Abroad?
So you’re interested in studying abroad but you aren’t sure what exactly it is or how they work? Perhaps you are simply trying to get more details to see if studying abroad is for you? Maybe you want to test your language abilities or learn about foreign cultures? Check out my Step By Step Guide on Study Abroad if you are interested in learning how to prepare for one!
Below is a breakdown of what a study abroad is, details about me and how I chose a program, if a study abroad is for you, and the good and bad experiences I had abroad. Please keep in mind this outline is mostly based on Purdue’s program setup but will still provide a general overview for students.
Gigliwald Overlooking Mount Pilatus and Kriens
What Exactly is a Study Abroad?
A study abroad is exactly what it sounds like. It is continuing your studies in a foreign university. It is the opportunity to live and breathe a culture completely different from the United States. Study abroads are once in a lifetime experiences that help you in multiple ways. They better prepare you for a career by showing your ability to adapt and work with people and they teach you many things about yourself. As I have said, they give you the ability to experience new cultures and languages. Before embarking on this journey I took a couple years of German. For going to Lucerne, a German speaking part of Switzerland, it was the perfect opportunity to speak German regularly and improve my fluency. Study abroad programs are designed to immerse you in the city you choose to study in and meet many different people from all over the world. It opens your eyes to what the world is really like away from stories you hear from friends, family, or even the internet. The experience creates a yearning inside you for more adventure and more opportunity to explore as much of the world as possible. In short, a study abroad is more than studying in a new and unique place. It is a short taste of life beyond your comfort zone. It is both a satisfaction and a tease to your adventurous spirit.
What Do I Study and How Did it Work Abroad?
I am studying Industrial Engineering Technology (IET) at Purdue University. For those who do not know what IET is, it is essentially a cross between engineering and the business world. IETs are able to speak the engineering language and apply the understanding to the business world. IETs also are masters of efficiency in a manufacturing and supply chain world.
Purdue University offers a large number of Study abroad options to its students making it fairly simple to find a program that both is interesting to you and will work with your plan of study. Purdue even takes it one step further and encourages all of their students to participate in some type of study abroad. This also means the programs you can apply for are ones you can trust to get a worthwhile semester of classes. As a technology heavy focused major, being able to have access to a similar level of tech resources was important to me. After finding the Lucerne program and researching the university I would be at, I knew it would be a good fit. Hochschule Lucerne (HSLU) is a technology based school. After searching through their website and talking to people who attended the previous year, I discovered they had very similar tech capabilities to Purdue and were a well regarded institute. From then on out my studies proceeded as usual and were rather enjoyable. If it weren’t for the thick accents and significantly smaller class sizes, you would almost think you were in a lecture at Purdue.
How Did I Find this Program?
During the summer of 2018, I participated in a 2 week study abroad trip with my 2 friends I have known nearly my entire life. Stay tuned for a full post on Ireland! After the trip, my friend Nolan and I both decided we had such an amazing time, we wanted more. We began searching for a semester long program that would allow us to submerse ourselves in the outdoors as well as take us to an entirely different place in the world. After an admittedly long time of sifting through different trips and sitting through different meetings, we’d found 2 different “perfect programs”. We were between Valencia Spain and Lucerne Switzerland of which we chose Lucerne. Ultimately, it came down to available space and classes available to our plans of study. We both were seniors looking to travel abroad and in turn had very limited space in our plan of study. The Lucerne program matched both our plans perfectly. From then on out we began prepping ourselves for the adventures ahead!
What Were Our Requirements for Our “Perfect Program”?
When looking for a program we had a list of what we were looking for in our destination. Obviously we didn’t anticipate any destination to cover all of them but we wanted as many of them checked as possible:
Mountains
Mountain Biking
Bodies of Water
Great Hiking
Climbing
Lots of Sun
Either be warm all the time or have lots of snow and snow sports
Speak a different language
Nice People
An active and “outdoorsy” culture
Fun bars (great place to meet people, specifically other students abroad, in a place you don’t know anybody)
Easy to use Public Transport
Cheap cost of living
Recommended by previous Purdue study abroad students
Skiing/ Snowboarding Melchsee-Frutt with friends from Poland and Spain
Is A Study Abroad for Me?
Trying to decide if participating in a study abroad is for you can be a challenge. When is the right time to go? Will I be able to make friends? What about the friends I have at school currently? Will I be able to graduate on time? Will it cost more? Will I have the ability to maintain my physical fitness? These are all valid questions that you should be asking. So, let’s break them down one by one. For a more in depth look at some of these topics, check out my Step By Step Guide on Study Abroad.
Interlaken Switzerland
There are many different program types when trying to decide when you want to study abroad. Purdue provides the options of a winter break program, 2-week programs during the summer, one semester programs in both the fall, spring, and summer, and lastly 2 semester programs. If your goal is to get one class out of the way but be able to travel to a foreign location to experience a new culture without the large time commitment, then perhaps the winter break or 2-week program option is what you want. You still have the opportunity to experience a new country and sight see many different locations in the programs city, or even perhaps country. The catch to this program type is you have very little say in the class that you take and you will only be with other students from your university. Typically, these short programs have a class preassigned to them. Therefore, in order for the class to count for one needed in your plan of study, you must not have already fulfilled that requirement. There are instances however of having your academic advisor sign off on that preassigned class counting elsewhere in the plan of study should the class be similar enough. If you are choosing to do a short program for fun and have no need for the credit, it is possible to take the class purely for credits and a GPA boost. This will however not count towards your plan of study short of having credits appear. Being with only students from the same school is fun and takes away the stress of having to make a friends group, but you will be hard pressed to meet foreign students.
If you have more flexibility in your plan of study, then perhaps a 1 or 2 semester abroad may be more appealing. These longer programs are good if you want to truly live in a different culture as opposed to simply experience one or if you want to challenge your ability to fluently speak a different language. When deciding on this type of program there are a few things you must be aware of and prepared for. For starters, you will be traveling to a foreign country, most likely, on your own. You will have a few pre- departure meetings with the other students on your trip, but you won’t get the opportunity to get to know them until you reach your destination. Because you will be living in this new country, you will be packing as much as your bag can carry and that’s all you have. Short of shipping stuff or purchasing things abroad of course. You also are going to have to be more conscientious of how to handle money. For a semester abroad you will be doing your normal grocery shopping and living routine and therefore be on similar budget to what you live on now. Therefore, having a plan on balancing school, groceries, fun, and anything else you may expect as an expense will be vital due to the more hands on style of this program type. Lastly, you have to be okay with, and excited about, the idea of making an entirely new group friends from all over the world and from all different backgrounds. For me, this was an extremely exciting aspect of this type of program. I truly enjoy getting to know people from different cultures and learn about how the world works where they are from.
The cost of a study abroad is largely dependent on your location. That being said, tuition cost was the same of what you pay at Purdue. Switzerland has a rather high cost of living. therefore the normal weekly cost on groceries and monthly expense of rent was rather high. Overall this made my semester cost more than a semester at Purdue. If you were to study somewhere with a lower cost of living than what you are used to then it could very well be much cheaper than a normal semester. If this is the case, then what better way to study than by saving money and being in a different part of the world!
Staying fit is easy yet challenging. Being somewhere new in the world means there is much to be explored. What better way to see this new place than to go for a run or bike ride? If running and the sort isn’t your cup of tea then this is where it gets difficult. Lots of Universities outside of the United States don’t have a recreational facilities as part of their campus. This means lifting weights and workouts of the sort are going to be hard to come by without purchasing a gym membership somewhere. For more details on the matter check out my Step By Step Guide on Study Abroad and look under Normal Semester and part iii.
Somewhere on a hike in the mountains in Switzerland
I Would Definitely Do it Again and You Should Too!
Studying abroad was one of, if not the most, amazing opportunities I have been fortunate enough to have. I learned an incredible amount about the world and perhaps most importantly, about myself. I made amazing friends from all corners of the globe while also getting to live half way around the world and experience life in Switzerland without the touristy blindfold. I got to have good and bad days, sunny and rainy days, hot and cold days all while I was there. I even got to expand my knowledge with professors from a completely different background than what I am use to all while taking classes that progressed me in my college career. It is an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world and one I would happily do again and again.
For a full List of the Gear I use for adventures like this, check out My Gear page HERE
