By Analia Garcia
Studying abroad is often said to be dangerous or scary, which is understandable, since you’re in a different country. Even though you don’t know the community, studying abroad has new opportunities for new friends and new people. Studying abroad isn’t guaranteed to be the best way of studying, but is guaranteed to be fun. According to Semester At Sea, “Research shows that students who study abroad are not only more likely to graduate on time, but also find career success after college.
In fact, 41% of employers cite international experience as an incentive to offer job candidates higher starting salaries.” This shows how studying abroad makes you excel faster and is very successful for jobs after college, and that employers give you a higher salary for your first job since you had studied abroad.
If you’re debating on studying abroad, but are more worried about safety, you should sign up for STEP. STEP is a smart traveler enrollment program. This program is a free service from the US department of state. It allows American citizens to give you real time events and notifications, like to call an emergency contact or family in case of an emergency.
Before going abroad, make sure you have an international health insurance, this covers any accidents which may occur while abroad. You also want to make sure to bring someone you know, like family or a friend, just someone you know that might also want to do it with you as well.
When studying abroad, you often need ways to get to your class; easy ways of transportation would be the bus, a bike, uber, or lyft. Make sure to also get trusted food business, such as world wide companies (mcdonalds, burger king or something) because your stomach won’t be used to the foods in your country that you are studying. Being safe while being abroad means to be careful with everything you do, including the foods, walking alone, classwork, basically anything. When studying abroad you should have an emergency plan for everything, since you’re in a foreign country, just in case it is your first time.
