How Studying Abroad Taught Me to Write Essays

📷

One of our very first staff members studied abroad twice as an undergraduate. 

After graduating, he spent a year in Germany with a Fulbright scholarship, which was administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education. As a Ph.D. student, he spent another year in Germany researching for his dissertation. 

As an instructor, he advised many students in selecting a study-abroad programme and making the most of the opportunity to live and study in another country. 

He also writes to me: "I met my wife when she was studying abroad at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver." So you can guess that his perspective is all about the benefits of studying abroad if you can!

We are supporters and advocates of studying abroad.

It’s not hard to find explanations of why studying abroad is so enriching.
According to UBC Student Services, “[i]ntroducing yourself to the culture of another region by living, studying and working abroad builds independence, initiative and adaptability - important traits that employers are constantly on the lookout for.”
The Study Abroad office at the University of California, Berkeley, strikes a similar note: “We believe that knowledge, skills and experiences gained through academic and cultural immersion offered by studying and living abroad enrich the intellectual preparation of our students and fundamentally enhance the relevance of a Berkeley education.”
University College Dublin offers five answers to the question of why to go on a study exchange: adventure and travel; quality of learning; your career; communications; friendship; new learning environment; and having fun.
Studying abroad can also impart very specific skills. You can, for example, learn how to research and write an essay and how to contribute to scholarly conversations.

📷

For instance, if you get the chance to study abroad at a place like Oxford university, you will be exposed to tutorials. Not the North American kind of tutorials where fifteen students meet to discuss readings and course material, but rather weekly sessions with faculty in groups of two or three students.

In that fraemwork, you will have essays due in tutorial every two weeks. And in that kind of tutorial, you won't hand them in and then wait a week or two to find out the paper’s strengths and weaknesses. Instead, you read the essays out loud and then respond, on the spot, to questions, challenges ,and critiques from both the tutor and fellow students.

The experience of discussing essays and debating my conclusions can change the way you approached written assignments. You realize that your written work is part of a larger scholarly conversation that is always ongoing. Any essay is just a part of that conversation.

This understanding of individual essays as building blocks in a larger edifice of knowledge informs  Wize Writer's platform, which is grounded in interrogative methodolgies and prompts students to engage with other scholars, provide background on the academic discussion of their topic and incorporate counterpoints that complicate their arguments.

That semester abroad had a profound influence on our guest blogger's subsequent academic path. And can do the same for you too.

All of this is to say that studying abroad, if you are lucky enough to do so, can give you many things:
academic skills that you might not get at your home college or university;
cultural awareness about different educational contexts, broadening your view of the world and ways of being educated in it;
confidence to navigate the big, broad world; and
you may just meet your life partner like my wife and I did!*
Further resources:
If you are an international student at Western, then this guide is for you!
If you want additional study resources - at home or abroad - then the Wizeprep study pass is your best study buddy on the go!
If your goal is to study at one of the elite, Ivy League colleges, then our top tips for that aim are for you!