Year abroad

[tired17]

My DD is hopefully going abroad for her 3rd year (2024 so loads of time yet) and I was wondering about a few things that I can't find answers to and wondered if anyone could help

What will she need to do about a bank account
What about accommodation, obviously it will be hard to sort from here, do unis tend to have specific accommodation for foreign students
Regarding accommodation does it come fully equipped or will she need to buy all the equipment - kitchen utensils etc - when she gets there
Mobile phone set up

And, the big question- do students find it more expensive being overseas.

If anyone has been through it I'd welcome any information.

@LIZS fair enough thanks for explaining

@eggsbenedict23 good question!

As @LIZS says, cultural experience, the chance to use language skills that aren't part of her degree and the opportunity to study modules that she wouldn't be able to do on her current course. One was History of Contemporary Japan which DD found fascinating, even though it is nothing to do with Natural Sciences.

DH was discussing this with some of his colleagues at a conference. The consensus was that a student prepared to go halfway round the world to study in a country where English is not the 1st language is someone worth considering for jobs. As she is not quite at that point yet, we will see if it proves to be correct.

I’m sure it is correct @eggsbenedict23 . My DS went to the states this year but has got a very competitive 12 week well paid summer internship on his return and they said it was because of the different modules and experiences he had whilst abroad.

@eggsbenedict23 our students who have been abroad typically do very well on the job market. It seems to be about the personal growth and soft skills they learn through the experience.

You can usually see this when you engage with them upon their return. Many refer to the experience as transformative.

@poetryandwine Plus every MFL student will (should) have gone abroad. DD studied abroad. It adds different subjects if they go to a university. Work skills if they don’t. It adds cultural experiences and coping in an unfamiliar environment. They do become more interesting people.

Yes, @TizerorFizz ! The ones I engage with are mostly in STEM and have studied abroad in English but I agree with all of this.

We encourage them to learn the local language even if not required for their studies

Depending on where she goes, the set up at her home university and her host university, there can either be lots of support or next to none. There'll possibly be visa applications to consider, registering for courses can be more or less difficult (the university I went to, exchange students got last pick basically), she might have to liaise with her home university around the topic & level of courses she takes abroad to ensure that her home university will recognise them when she returns. There will likely be unexpected challenges - when I went some fellow students arrived to find out their promised accommodation was not actually available because it had been overbooked; I lost my passport part way through my overseas stay and had to leave the country to apply for a new visa; students lose their phones, bank cards and so on.

That is a long-winded way of saying: It's great that your trying to support your DD by helping with background research, but the more comfortable she becomes now researching these practical issues, figuring out how stuff works, the easier it will be for her when she is abroad and things don't go as expected.

She will be sorting it herself, sometimes I find it helpful to have some information so that I know a bit about what to expect as she will discuss it and possibly ask for advice.

(And it helps with my worrying if I have some information!)

@tired17 if it's any consolation, DD's home uni has a dedicated office to deal with exchange students and she said they were really helpful, even with the seemingly ever-changing situation due to Covid. They explained the visa process to her so she was ready to act as soon as Japan opened up to students again.

Such a range of experiences. My child has done two periods abroad, the home university didn't answer emails or phone calls and has not been in touch in well over a year other than through generic emails. My child tried to get support but nothing was available which was a shame and definitely not as advertised.

The home university selects and nominate which students can go on exchange to their destination partner universities. Some destinations are very competitive and applications will exceed the number of exchange places available. After that, the students will be expected to do most of the work themselves.

Home universities can be very helpful if they have experience in sending large cohort numbers to the destination universities. This can often be the case for MFL degrees.

The destination university will supply most of the information. The student going on exchange will need to deal directly with these.

University students in the UK can be very spoon fed in comparison to students elsewhere. There may not be the range of support services in the destination university that the student is used to in the UK. Some students find the whole experience very challenging indeed.

My DD chose her university in the U.K. partly based on where their partner universities were based for the year abroad. Each uni has different partner unis and these are course specific.

The main places she considered were a couple of unis in Canada, one in the foot of the Rocky Mountains, a couple in California, and one in Australia. She decided on California because Australia still weren't open after covid and there was no guarantee they would be open to exchange students in time for her to go.

The process was first to give about five choices in order of preference to her uni and they then chose who would be placed where. She worked really hard so she was placing near the top of her year and was also competing on a sports team for the uni and was a student ambassador and a content creator for her uni as she knew she was applying for the most popular destinations. Her uni then put her forward to the uni in California which was her first choice and then she had to apply to them directly and apply for visas etc.

The uni fees are paid mostly by the home uni and a small part by student finance. Then her maintenance loan was larger from student finance and she was eligible for Turing funding which paid her flights, visas, transfer travel to and from the airport and her uni health insurance which was required and separate and special vaccinations etc required by the uni. She had to prove she had chicken pox antibodies. She just had to pay the first £300 and then got everything else refunded. She did have to pay upfront for it but then they were reasonably quick in refunding her although she did chase and phone a lot.

She didn't bother with a bank account and just used Monzo, The accommodation was offered on campus by the Californian uni which was all shared dorms and all catered - she had to buy a meal plan with the room and there were inclusive voucher things which she could use anywhere on campus. Many of the American campuses are insane with incredible facilities. She had free gym membership etc. It was expensive there but she made good use of the catering so she didn't go hungry and she worked through the summer before she went and made good use of her student bank account overdraft which she hadn't used at all until the year abroad but had applied for each year of her degree so that gave her 3k of wiggle room. She's paying that off this summer. I sent her £300 a month which is what I send her in the U.K. too.

She had an amazing time and really appreciated being able to take different classes in areas not available in the U.K. (the US system allows a much wider range of classes to be taken) and it really helped her firm the career path she's interested in.

@GMsAWinner where did your dd study?