BootsnAll Travel Community

Being a foreign student at the moment, I'm curious about who else is. So, if you're a foreign student, where are you from, where are you studying and why are you studying there? Mostly, I would like to know what you think of the experience. Do you think it is better/worse than studying at home and what do you consider the biggest benefit of studying abroad?

I've been back from my study abroad for about six weeks now, but I figure that's close enough. I studied in Oslo, Norway at the University of Oslo. I chose there because I'm learning Norwegian at home (University of Oregon), and I'm learning Norwegian at home because that's where my family is from, and we still have close ties to family in Norway (though not Oslo).

This program appealed to me, too, because it was just the summer term, and it seemed like a good opportunity to work on my Norwegian and experience the country, possibly helping to decide if/where I'd like to study for a longer period of time in Norway.

The experience was the best thing I've ever done in my life, and I'd never been as happy and content as I was while there. I've even been able to carry some of the personal changes to my life at home, and feel like my time in Norway has led to a turning point in my life, as far as understanding myself and what I want and don't want out of life.

As far as pure academia, I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of the commonly-found European style of nothing but reading and one big final exam at the end. Not that it's always this way, but that is quite common. I prefer to have some sort of academic dialogue with my professors, so that I know if I'm understanding the material, and not just having to bank on one good exam. That's probably just personal preference, though.

Otherwise, it seems unfair to compare studying at home and abroad in a good vs bad way. I think it's good to do both, to have perspective and be able to contextualize things. If I'd done all of my studies overseas, I wouldn't be able to compare them with here.

The benefit of study abroad is understanding the world, and your place in it, more thoroughly. In my program, we had people from 100 countries, all experiencing Norway as foreigners. It allowed for some very interesting discussions on commonalities and differences between many countries. It was also interesting to see that there are certain things we consider as almost innate human nature, such as some violent traits, greed, theft, etc., but that other countries have dealt with culturally. But, in the end, it all comes back to how you consider yourself in the scheme of the world. I found that I was maybe a much different person than I thought, and I'm not sure I'd ever have known that otherwise.

I studied for a supershort (less than a month) summer term this June & July in Oxford (UK). It was tremendous just to be there, taking classes from these really bright scholars, studying in a library that is older than my country... It cost a lot of money, but it was definitely worth it. I could walk from my college down to city center and pass the pub where Tolkien read his work out loud to his literary group, the place where Bloody Mary had people burned at the stake...so much history within walking distance. That was the biggest thing for me. It was also amusing that to get a reader's card for the Bodleian (library of Oxford), I had to read aloud an oath saying that I wouldn't set any fires....

Oh, and getting an excuse to backpack for 3 weeks (nowhere near long enough) through the British Isles & Ireland was worth it, too.