By Roberto Diaz
College students continuously give up once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to travel, they don’t want to leave the setting they’re comfortable with.
Throughout college campuses there are signs posted revealing the information needed to study abroad.
Students have a variety of reasons why they would study abroad, but different situations prevevnt them.
Such as financial circumstances, and students being fearful of leaving their comfort zones; the opportunity would seem very unlikely.
Well, there are many ways to go about these obstacles in order to be able to take advantage of this life -changing opportunity.
Author Santiago Vaquera-Vasquez, said that his sister, who only had one leg, “would work non-stop for periods of time, all in order to save up money for the cause of being able to take a couple months off to travel wherever she would like, backpacking.”
Vasquez’s sister made sacrifices to be able to get to her goal.
These study abroad programs are targeted for college students, and adjustments can, more often than not, be made.
This should be utilized, whether it involves setting up a payment plan with the program or for getting a scholarship to get a discount on the trip.
If one is able to come up with the money however, it would be worth doing earlier in a college career or even right after high school.
This is because later, students do not know if they will have other responsibilities outside of school that will make the trip fairly more expensive or just difficult to schedule around.
If money isn’t the problem and students just don’t want to leave family and friends, then that is how they know that they need to take this trip.
The opportunity to study abroad at a younger age allows students to easily make friends while abroad.
Students’ friends from home might be able to join the program if they are also interested, making the experience a whole lot better.
It is important to be able to get out of one’s comfort zone and feel confident to be able to perform.
It is hard to do because, for many, it will be their first time living away from home.
It isn’t just living at school. There will be an ocean separating students from their comfort.
This can be overwhelming, but the benefits that come from this sacrifice will influence the person that students will become in the future.
Some of the main benefits of studying abroad include: gaining real world experience, taking a challenge, learning about different cultures and languages, meeting people around the world, preparing for future jobs and a plethora of different foods to explore.