The following post was written by Peer Advisor Maggie, a senior in the Elliott School. Maggie is double majoring in International Affairs and Chinese Language and Literature, and was selected for the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars Fellowship to continue her graduate studies in China.
Choosing the right study abroad program can be hard. There are so many options for the places you can go and the types of programs you in which you can participate. This often is overwhelming, especially considering you prepare for your study abroad experience during freshman and sophomore year when your ideas about what you want to major in and do with your life are maturing. Despite having to make such an important choice so early on, I am here to share my own words of wisdom:
When choosing a study abroad experience you should maintain the perspective that study abroad should not be a vacation, but an academic endeavor. When selecting a program, it should line up with what you are studying in college, enhance your on-campus experience, and help solidify your career aspirations. Moreover, you should think about how you will capitalize on the experience once you return to the U.S.
Students should view study abroad as an opportunity to create a narrative for themselves that makes them stand out from the crowd. However, this means that from an academic and career perspective often times the study abroad experience you should choose will be much more challenging. And this can be more difficult when your friends and classmates participate in programs with less rigorous coursework and allow them more freedom to travel. For instance, while you might be spending your summer in Tajikistan working on your Persian, your friends will be posting photos of them eating baguette and cheese at the Eiffel Tower or from a beach in Fiji. Though this stark difference is hard to reconcile when you come back, putting in the time and effort to complete a rigorous study abroad program that adds to your academic narrative pays dividends.
While on the Critical Language Scholarship in China, I was able to try my hand at calligraphy
If you select programs that parallel your on-campus studies, these experiences can often be used in applications for grants and fellowships that will allow you to study and do research abroad for free – for example, through a Boren Scholarship, Fulbright, Critical Language Scholarship, to name a few. Moreover, if you are able to articulate why your experience abroad was significant, it can be used in applications for graduate school and post-graduation job interviews.
As a double major in Chinese and International Affairs, I began to study abroad the summer after my freshman year. Motivated by my Chinese classes at GW, I wanted to push my language development beyond the pace available in a classroom in the U.S. I chose to attend an intensive, immersive Chinese summer language program in Kunming, where we spoke Chinese 24/7 and the rate at which I felt my language improve was phenomenal. During all three summers I have been at GW, I have participated in three intensive Chinese language programs both in Mainland China and Taiwan. Of these three experiences, I have only had to pay in full for the first one.
My perseverance through a challenging summer in Kunming allowed me to craft a narrative about myself to apply to and be awarded the GW Sigur Center Language fellowship to study Chinese in Taiwan, and most recently U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study in Dalian, China. By selecting a first study abroad experience that was well suited to my academic pursuits, I was able to position myself as a serious student of Chinese and China and become a more unique applicant to grants and scholarships for continued language training abroad, and a more competitive applicant for post-graduation opportunities.
Choosing a study abroad program is not easy, and I encourage you to ultimately choose the less easy path. When selecting a program, think: “what program will enhance my studies and develop me for future pursuits?” For me, study abroad has been no walk in the park; it has been three summers of hard, hard work. But I would do it again year after year because it made me a better student and more competitive in almost all aspects of my life.
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