出国留学现在是一个日益全球化的现象。“最令人钦佩的是：一些家庭对孩子从小学开始就进行了很好的教育。那些不太富裕的家庭的学生可以在他们留学的学校中通过优异的成绩可以获得奖学金。”
Studying Abroad Is Worthwhile
Studying abroad is now an increasingly global phenomenon. For some better-off families, the most admirable education starts as early as elementary school. Or students from less wealthy family can land them a place at college abroad coming with scholarship later in life. No matter at which stage of life, overseas study is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for people to broaden their horizons, open their minds and grow into a more internationalized talent that echoes with the call of the society.
Studying abroad, on a broad sense, promotes a wide range of cultures to flourish on campus. By encouraging of doing so, it also serves well to local students who can experience a mix of cultures without going abroad. It is right next to them. Individually, studying abroad, to a great extent, is life-transforming and far-reaching. Its benefits are self-evident: language skills, survival skills, better understanding of different cultures and the list can go on and on. The influence of acquiring an overseas learning experience on a person’s life time is so overwhelming and profound that it is worthwhile investing such a large amount of money and time.
Studying abroad, first and foremost, is immensely helpful to acquiring a second language. No doubt when a person is new to a place, one major obstacle is language. Yet fortunately, nowadays before a student is admitted into a foreign school, he/she is required to obtain some language certification to ensure the student can conduct basic communications in a foreign country. As for Chinese students, the United States, the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand are often the most sought-after destinations for overseas study. So speaking English is necessary for them to study abroad. The reality is English is promoted from primary school through college in China but most of the time, Chinese students speak broken English which hinders their daily communication with native speakers. While studying in an English-speaking country, students are immersed in an all-time English environment. It is only a matter of time before they are proficient in English since they simply cannot get away from using it. “Continued language usage was greatest among respondents who lived in a homestay, with 42 percent saying they now use a language other than English on a regular basis” (Dwyer and Peters 1). Sooner or later, they have no difficulty in daily communication, in attending colleges whose teaching medium is English and using English academically. Compared with students learning English for the sake of passing examinations in Chinese education system, those who study in an English-speaking country acquire English without too much pain. Since they use English all the time, there is little possibility that the second language would become rusty once stop using it. On the whole, mastering a second language is a useful social skill and an edge over those who are not good enough.
Studying abroad can expose students to different cultures across the global. This case is especially true in the United States. As a cultural pot, America colleges welcome students coming from the four corners of the world. “In their goals and mission statements, most colleges and universities include some version of ‘knowledge of other cultures’ as a component of a liberal education” (Hopkins 36). Take a walk across any American colleges, you can find students of different colors and races everywhere and from time to time, you can see them sitting on the grass, chatting lively. That’s exactly part of American campus culture and that’s why American colleges appeals so much to overseas students. The world is integrated and this generation needs to be tolerant to people different than you in order to blend in. There is nowhere better than a culturally diverse college for a student to experience first hand what other cultures are like and how they different than his/hers. If he/she encounters cultural shocks, how can he/she deal with them? For a student who receives his/her primary and secondary education in China, he/she is used to be a listener in class and work on his/her own after class. If put in an American college, he/she needs to adapt to the new environment as soon as possible, where teamwork and active class participation is a must in most cases. In such circumstances, the student needs to learn how to contribute to a team project and how to be prepared for classes because he/she cannot simply just sit in the class with the teacher dominating the class it is not like that in a western class. Students need to be heard. To illustrate this point, how people from different cultures behave may also come into the picture. Chinese students are usually shy and not good at interpersonal skills. It is often the case that Chinese students are not comfortable with western cultures since they are way too open for them. Yet if they shy away from making friends from western cultures, they will end up living in their own world. So they need to be more open-minded. The exposure to various cultures and even though most of the time, in conflict with the different ones, students can gradually learn to react and be tolerant to different cultures in the world. And he/she will be better prepared for a more internationalized workplace.
Studying abroad can make a student to become more independent. Studying abroad is a big move for many youngsters as it is the first time that they have lived away from their parents in a remote distance. Generally speaking, Chinese kids are often spoiled in their family. Everything is taken care for them. Their sole task is academic performance. Everything else is secondary. While studying abroad it is not just studying literally. What the package contains is that students need to live on their own without family members taking care of them. For example, students need to find a place to live. If living on campus, they need to apply. If living off campus, they need to rent. Besides, they need to learn how to cook as no one is preparing meals for them anymore. Laundry, household’s chores and bill settlement are all of a sudden thrust on the tender shoulders of the students. They cannot just wait and hope that someone will fix these problems for them. It is not realistic for your parents to travel thousands of miles across continents just to make the bed for you. Living alone means you are responsible for everything that comes along your way. But by learning to be independent, you will not have a hard time abroad. Soon you will become good at multitasking, problem-solving and much stronger to brave the elements. Learning to count on yourself is a natural phrase of life. Studying abroad is a great opportunity for students to sail away from the harbor of safety and weather the storms by themselves at an early age.
Studying abroad is a plus when hunting for jobs. When is all said and done, the reason for parents to save every penny they have to send their children abroad to receive better education is to give them a head start over their peers. Marcum suggested, “in a world where our interest in global issues only continues to grow, we must view study abroad from a far broader perspective.” (B7). With rapid globalization, there are more and more multinational companies here and there. During their expansion, there is an urgent need for internationalized talents who can speak at least two languages, who are open-minded, competitive and having a team spirit. The qualifications that these international companies ask for basically boil down to the core values of western education. Therefore, studying abroad is a long-term investment for a student. When graduating from a foreign college, he/she will feel more confident to step into the society and compete with other job applicants. The advantage is more evident when these overseas students come back to their motherland to find a job. It is especially true in China. China is now the second largest economy in the world and a large number of domestic companies are eager to go global. Hence, this kind of companies seriously needs a lot of overseas talents to help them expand the foreign market. Chinese overseas students would be a perfect match for them. Equipped with language skills of proficient Chinese and English, a mixture of eastern and western cultures, they are qualified to fill the positions. “Consequently, college students today need an education that provides them with skills—such as communication skills—that will allow them to compete in a global market with an increasingly educated population” (Williams 3).
Every coin has two sides. Despite the fact that studying abroad have many benefits, we cannot deny that it results in some negativity. Brain drain is the case in point. Nowadays, it is often the case that talents from developing countries go to developed countries to further their study. It is natural for them to pursue academic advancement. And in some cases, some talents are subsidized by the government. After they finish their study in an industrialized country, it is not unusual for them to choose to stay in that country rather than returning to their motherland. The reasons for that are many. Perhaps they don not want to go back to the old pattern of life; perhaps the job opportunities are much more than at home where they have no place to put what they learn in practice; perhaps they are better paid and can make a better living abroad than at home. No matter what is the reason, the hard fact is that those talents are gone. They cannot take part in making their homeland a better place. This is sad, but nobody to blame.
Another downside to studying abroad is that in the fashion of following suit, parents push their kids to study abroad without considering their abilities or picking and choosing a good school for their children. Like everywhere in the world, there are both excellent and lousy schools in the western world. Without careful comparison of schools, children can end up in some school where academy is no guaranteed. Furthermore, for some young kids living on their own without parental supervision, they are prone to run wild and go stray. For some students who are always on the close watch of their parents, once they are given total freedom, they can go party all night and no study at all. And unfortunately, there are losses of life when students studying abroad. Some tragedies take place in the middle of the night when the overseas students stay out late and got shot for some reason. This is the worst thing that can happen to overseas students. Therefore, before students are ready to embark the exciting and unknown journey of overseas study, they need to learn to be self-disciplined and learn self-protection.
Considering the advantages and disadvantages, we can safely come to the conclusion that studying abroad is a wise decision to make and will be beneficial for a life-time development. Studying and living abroad creates a desirable environment for an overseas student to get totally immersed in a foreign language environment. By actively using the foreign language every day, soon the forewing language will come natural to the users. A master of two languages is a great bonus in today’s society and highly valued by the potential employers. Besides, studying abroad means stepping out of your comfort zone and embrace entirely new and different cultures. This is a great challenge for new arrivals and it usually takes some time for them to get used to. But as long as they learn to be open-minded, they can appreciate the differences of the world and be more tolerant. Furthermore, studying abroad is conducive to personal growth. No longer under the wings of parents, children are forced to face up to the outside world and take care of themselves. They are responsible for what they do and the majority of the time, they are the one that they can count on. But all the efforts to study abroad will pay off eventually.
Works Cited
Hopkins, J.R. (1999). Studying abroad as a form of experiential education. Liberal Education, 85, 36-41.
Marcum, J.A. (2017, May 18). What direction for study abroad? Eliminate the roadblocks. The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, 47(36), B7-B8.
Mary M. Dwyer. and Courtney K. Peters. The Benefits of Study Abroad.
Tracy Rundstrom Wiiliams. (2017). Journal of Studies in International Education.
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