Broaden your horizons, study abroad

Since I was a small child, I have wanted to live and study in a foreign country. Experiencing another culture while getting an education has always been one of my dreams. 

Since I enrolled at Citrus College, I have been surprised at how relatively few citrus students share the dream to pursue an education outside of the United States or even California.

This opinionated viewpoint seems self-defeating as studying abroad can have many benefits. 

Of course finances always come into play when trying to decide whether or not to study somewhere else. Yes, it can be expensive to study abroad, but with proper planning, it actually can be relatively cheap.

Many countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia offer low cost of living.

Others can get American Students a job when you transfer into the university.

Some selected universities in the United Kingdom even pay for your first flight to travel to the school.

Although Citrus offers study abroad programs headed by Lynn Johnson where you can study in: London, Salamanca and Costa Rica, the study can be short-term lasting a month or so. Studying through the Citrus programs can be very exciting and well worth the money. But attending an actual three-four year college can give you more benefits that those programs cant.

With California running a serious deficit, it makes sense to go study out of state, and out of country. Because of the school budget cuts, the K-12 in California is having fewer schools day in the year.

When I graduated last year in 2009, we graduated in June. Now high schools are graduating a month earlier thanks to California’s budget crisis.    

Competition for school entries is high and schools have strict requirements. Such as counties of California having a person met a certain GPA depending on where they live. The requirements in other countries can be achieved fairly easily and most are glad and willing to accept international students. That can be said with American colleges too, such as the University of Hawaii. 

Countries such as the United Kingdom can be expensive but many parts of the country do have a low cost of living, with a single student being more than able to afford an apartment or flat. 

I have a friend who attends the University of Hull in the United Kingdom and works at a local coffee shop. She gets paid 80 pounds ($104 U.S.) a week, and her rent a month is 100 pounds ($130 U.S.). With her bills paid for, she still has left over money.

Just the shear fun of waking up every morning in another country can be an incentive enough to study abroad. Why not get out of your comfort zone the norm and experience something new and different?

There are many experiences that are for those who want to study abroad. All you have to do is show interest and apply. When others ask me “Why leave everything you know? I just respond “why not”?