My Top Tips for Studying Abroad

A year abroad is, in my opinion, one of the best things you can do for yourself. But like anything worth doing, you get out what you put in. Here are some things I hope will help you to either decide whether or not to go for your year abroad, or some things you can think about while out there.

Say yes (almost always, and within your means).

The version of you that stays in and watches Netflix is not the version of you that comes home with stories. Say yes to the dinner invitation even when you’re tired. Say yes to the day trip you hadn’t planned. Say yes to food you can’t identify. Some of the best moments of my year were ones I nearly talked myself out of. Obviously use your common sense, but err heavily on the side of YES!

Learn the laguage. Even just a little.

You don’t need to be fluent. You likely won’t be. But learning how to greet people, order food and say thank you in the local language will open more doors than you’d expect. People appreciate the effort in a way that is genuinely moving. Even, fumbling through a few words signals that you’re trying to meet them halfway, and that counts for a lot.

Have a budget – and stick to it.

A year abroad can get expensive fast, especially when everything is new and exciting and you want to do all ot if immediately. Sit down before you go and work out roughly what you have, what your fixed costs are, and what’s left over for the fun stuff. Build in a travel fund if you can. The trips you take during your year – the weekends away, the spontaneous trips to somewhere new – will be some of your best and most vivid memories. Budget for them on purpose.

Find your people early.

The first few weeks can feel a little lonely, and that’s normal. Push through it and put yourself in rooms where you might meet people – clubs, classes, language exchanges, whatever your university offers. You don’t need to find your whole tribe immediately, but find one or two people you can have dinner with, and the rest tends to follow.

Try not to compare your experiences to anyone else’s.

Someone on your course will seem to be having a more exciting time. Someone will have already travelled to six countries by month two. Someone will have a group of friends that looks effortless from the outside. None of this is useful information. Your year is yours. Measure it against what you wanted from it, not what someone else’s looks like.

Let yourself be a beginner.

You will get lost. You will order the wrong thing. You will misread a social situation or mispronounce something important. This is all find, and most of it will become a good story. The willingness to be bad at something temporarily is what gets you to the good stuff faster.

Document it, but not at the expense of living it.

Take the photos, write the journal entries, make a scrapbook. You will be glad you did. But put the phone down sometimes and just be somewhere. the memories you hold in your body – the smell of a place, the feeling of a particular evening – are the ones that kast longest.

Honestly, your year abroad will be exactly what you make it. So make it count.