Spencer Gallagher

12/3/19

On October 30^th I attended a fair in the Bartley Atrium where we learned about all the opportunities we have when choosing where to study abroad. Before going to this event, I had little knowledge about the opportunities that we have. Now, I’m excited to say that I will be going to London this summer as a part of a learning community to do an internship and take a class. I would recommend attending this event to anyone who is interested in studying abroad, as it helped me pick where I’m going this summer.

There are many things you must take into consideration when it comes to picking what program you want to participate in. The first thing I would recommend doing is picking where you want to go. When I showed up to the Study Abroad Fair, I was astonished by how many different places we had to choose from. Picking where you want to go can be by far the most challenging part of planning your study abroad trip.  Even though I ended up choosing London, I was also really interested in going to France, and that posed a dilemma for me when choosing where I would go.

The next logical step is to choose which program you want to go with. There is a plethora of options when it comes to different programs. One of the most common options is to go on a trip that is school-sponsored. This is what I chose to do because the credits transfer automatically. But there are so many other opportunities to choose from if the school doesn’t have something that fits your needs.

If you decide to go with a program that is not run through the school, it is extremely important to make sure your credits will transfer over. Not only that, but you also need to make sure that the classes you are taking will count towards your intended major.

Lastly, you have to make sure that this is the trip that you want to actually take. With such limited time in college, it is likely that you will only get one or two chances to study abroad. I found this event to be extremely beneficial to helping me pin down where I want to go. I was able to talk with many of the people who run these trips, and hearing them out really gave me the information I needed to choose London.

So, if you are looking to study abroad but aren’t completely sure where you want to go yet, going to this information session would be extremely beneficial to you. Even if you think you know where you want to study abroad, going to this information session couldn’t hurt you. Maybe if you go to this session you could come out of it knowing where you want to study abroad like me. At the very least visit the school’s study abroad website and scroll through all the different programs they have (Link).

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