Your Erasmus+ or Turing Scheme placement abroad is an experience that you’ll never better! It’s a period of time where you can really make a difference, to your overall qualifications, your future career, your environment and even your connections. In this article, by the experts at TravelEdventures, we give you some advice on ways to make the biggest positive impact on your study placement in another country. Read on and find out what you can do to ensure that your time away really is memorable and unforgettable!
- Find a Local Mentor
Whether you’re at a school, college or university in a new country, you will have access to tremendously talented teachers and lecturers. You’ll also be assigned to one particular person who will be responsible for helping you with anything you need to settle in. You could make this person your mentor – with their permission. Or you might find you build a rapport with a certain professor. Speak to them about what else you can do to further enhance your studying, or maybe they could help you do something outside of your course to benefit from.
2. Make Friends With Lots of Different People
There’s a tendency for students to stick with other students from their home country, or who speak their own language. There’s nothing wrong with this but actually it’s better to branch out and meet people from lots of different countries, including your host country. There’s also no reason why your new friends have to be a similar age to yourself. Try and make friends of all ages, and you’ll open your eyes to lots of different types of thinking. You’ll also make connections in other countries – who knows where that will lead to? Perhaps a visit – perhaps work later on! You’ll never know until you find common ground with other nationalities! Plus, doing so will be good for expanding your professional network too, and it helps with encouraging internationalism!
3. Take a Language Course
Yes, we talk about this a lot but it’s really important! You’re in another country, unless you’re 100% fluent, why not improve your language skills? Practice makes perfect – so the saying goes and by enrolling in a language course you’ll also meet other people from other countries (following from the point above!). Having another language under your belt always looks good on your resume – future employers really value this skill.
4. Find a Part-Time Job
This is good for many reasons. Firstly, you’ll likely be on a budget, so having a part-time job will help to boost your cash, you’ll have more to spend! Secondly, work experience in whatever capacity (and in another country other than your own) speaks volumes on a resume, future employers love it! Thirdly, you’ll get to practice and improve your language skills and finally, you’ll meet lots of new people, building that ever-growing network of yours!
5. Get Involved
You may be an extremely sociable person, in which case you’ll want to participate in all the activities available – whether it’s a sports club at your host university or a get-together, or perhaps learning a new skill? There will be lots of opportunities to take part in activities, especially if you’re travelling with TravelEdventures because we provide a full itinerary of things to do during the first couple of weeks to help you settle in. Getting involved helps you to feel like you belong, and it helps to squash any homesickness. Do as much as you can throughout your placement – as long as it doesn’t prevent you from doing your studies, which are always your number one priority.
6. Deal With Disatisfaction Quickly
If you find you’re not keen on your course, then don’t ignore the warning signs! You do need to give your course a couple of weeks to see if your feelings change, but if not, don’t sit it out, see if you can change to something else. There may be openings on other similar courses. Speak to your coordinator on the ground (our representative will be available if you’re travelling with us).
7. Give Back to Your Local Community
Every community has initiatives, whether it’s to be more sustainable, to care for the environment, to help with charity or something else. Find out what you can do to join in, after all, the community will be your own for a period of time and again, it’s a good way to give back while meeting other people. You’ll feel satisfied too, it’s a nice feeling to help others!
Final Words
This is your chance to shine and not just in your studies! When you arrive in your new country, you effectively start from a fresh point in your life. Be as pleasant as possible to everyone you come across, work hard (play hard too, without impacting your workload), get involved and give back to your community. Try new things and activities – this is the time to be a little daring (but please remember to always stay safe and be sensible). Meanwhile, if you’re a school, college or university looking for a reputable partner to help put together the very best possible work or study placements abroad, then look no further than the team at TravelEdventures! We’ve been putting together top-quality Erasmus+ and Turing Scheme trips for over 30 years – be our next success story, get in touch by clicking here.
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