To study abroad or not to study abroad is the question? Traveling to a foreign country might sound overwhelming, but once you hop on the plane there is no going back. For a matter of fact, you won’t want to come back once you’ve lived in another country and experienced all that it has to offer you. Here are just a few benefits of why you should study abroad. Perspective from: an exchange student at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford England for the Spring 2015 semester.
World Wide Friendships
Alright. Put the Netflix down and go be social! Make friends with your flat mates, classmates, and other international students. I lived in a flat with four other girls from Sweden, Holland, California, and Australia. Talk about international friendships. Over the semester we bonded with flat dinners, excursions to other English cities or outside the U.K., and took park in Oxford’s many traditions.
Travel Travel Travel
The beauty of studying abroad is the opportunity you have to travel. Don’t just go outside your host country but travel within it. During my time in the UK, I went to London, Bath, Stonehenge, Winchester, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh, the Scottish Highlands, Lochness, and Glasgow to name a few.
With cheap budget airlines it is possible to fly anywhere. I traveled from Dublin, Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland for only $15 with RyanAir! Outside the UK I traveled to Holland, Belgium, Spain, France, Ireland, and Portugal. While traveling, be flexible, especially while staying at hostels.
Those Hidden Gems
Try to be adventurous and go places the locals go. There are awesome blogs like Urban Outfitters City Guide that give insider tips to cities around the world. For example, Urban Outfitters recommended Bettina and Niccolo’s Brownie Café or Park Bar. The Park Bar recommendation was a bar situated on top of a parking garage that overlooked all of Lisbon. These were places where only the Portuguese locals went, and it was awesome to be surrounded by their beautiful language!
Even Hostel World has city guides full of cheap places to eat, insider tips on transportation, and cultural events that are happening in the city. These were great resources I used while I traveled throughout Europe.
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