About this time a year ago, I was planing on what study abroad program I was going to apply to. And thinking about that reminds me that there are still plenty of people on our campus figuring out what program they want to do and figuring out the whole ‘studying abroad’ thing.
So here’s some advice on what to do if you’re looking into studying abroad!
First off, you should really think hard about what place you want to go to. For me, it was really easy to choose the English Department’s Semester-in-London — London had been my dream city ever since Harry Potter ran through the brick wall at Platform 9-3/4 at King’s Cross Station. But for some people, that dream city is Florence, Tokyo, Paris or even a semester at sea (we do have a program like that, check it out!). So when looking into programs, think about where you’d like to be most.
Then you should really talk to people to find out what courses are involved in the program. Like for the London program, you may think ‘oh, it’s all English classes, I can’t do that because I’m a Engineering student!’. But there are classes that you probably still need that you can find in your study abroad programs. Everyone needs a Writing credit or two, so maybe this is the chance to knock them out of the way!
Talk to your advisors. Not just your academic advisor (who will definitely give you an idea of what courses will apply to your major) but also the financial aid advisors. They’ll give you an idea of how your aid will distrubute, how much money you’ll be paying extra and even an idea of when these expenses are due! If it wasn’t for the financial aid advisors, I probably would have been spending my spring semester in Hillside instead of Central London.
Finally, pay attention to deadlines. They’re there for a reason. And of course it may seem as if the applications get kind of ridiculous, the amount of things they ask for, but I joke that it’s because they’re trying to weed out the bad ones. We know how our professors are mean during the first few weeks to scare away the people who won’t do the work — that’s the same thing these applications do. If you get through those that you can do absolutely anything!
So get to looking for your program and good luck on applications!!!