If you’re visiting this site, chances are you’re thinking of studying abroad, but not completely convinced why you should go yet. Or, maybe you’re just bored and stumbled upon this site and you’ve never thought about studying abroad before, but I encourage you to continue on reading even if that is your case. Whatever brought you here, hopefully this blog will help you realize why studying abroad is a great opportunity you should take advantage of while at Western Illinois University!
So, here are 10 reasons why you should study abroad:
1) Internationalize Yourself: As our world becomes more and more interconnected, exposing yourself to the world is more important than ever. Studying abroad allows you to experience an entire new way of life, where the opportunities are endless to learn about yourself and others.
2) Challenge Yourself: Wherever you choose to go, you will likely be outside of your comfort zone, but this is part of the fun while being abroad! Living in an unfamiliar place, budgeting your money, and overcoming homesickness are all challenges you will face while abroad, but once you overcome these challenges, you will feel like you have accomplished so much - which, you will have. :)
3) Resume Booster: Employers in today’s world love seeing study abroad on a resume. During your everyday life, you will have opportunities to develop important skills valuable in a career, such as problem solving, flexibility, and a multicultural perspective.
4) Meet New People and Make New Friends: Some of my absolute best friends are the ones I met while studying abroad. Some I talk to almost every day, but even the ones I may not talk to as often, we still keep in touch sporadically. I also have friends all over the US and world, which is pretty cool in thinking about how many places I can now travel to to visit people!
5) Gain Interpersonal Skills: Interpersonal skills are all about how we interact with others. You will come back and have new knowledge about how to interact with others who are different from you, which is a great skill to have! Not only can it make you more comfortable in interacting with others, but employers will like it too!
6) Learning Opportunities: There are learning opportunities EVERYWHERE when studying abroad. In what might be simple conversations with your friends in the US (such as the process to get a drivers license), you can learn A LOT if you have a group from all over the world. In interacting with students from your host institution, you can learn about their lifestyle and culture. You will also learn so much about yourself during your time abroad, and what a fun way to learn about yourself!
7) Learn a New Language: What better way to learn a new language than live in a country where it is spoken on a daily basis? Even if you are pretty good at a language, you will always have more to learn from natives of that language.
8) Learn About a New Culture: There are so many ways to do life besides how you grew up doing it. Go out and learn about those ways and learn to appreciate differences!
9) Learn in a New Environment: Your host institution will probably have different classes from your home institution. Also, experiencing a completely different education system is just something exciting and unique to do! So, while it can be easy to get caught up in travel, travel, travel, there’s a lot to learn from your new university as well!
10) The Travel Experience: No matter where you go, there will be new places and things to see. Even better, right now is the only time you will be able to use financial aid and scholarships to travel! Take advantage of the resources offered to you while you are a student and go learn while traveling!
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