Colleges and universities should require their students to spend at least one semester studying in a foreign country

Many reasons advocate for students to spend at least one semester in a foreign country while studying at university: to grow professionally and sometimes spiritually, to acquire a different prospective in life, to broaden the horizon, however, studying abroad should not be made a requirement or a condition as many circumstances can prevent a student from accomplishing this idea. At least three points shall be considered and analyzed before making the idea of “studying one semester abroad” program an ultimate requirement: student’s desire, the situation with foreign students, and financing.

Student’s desire shall be considered as many students are not willing to travel and would like to finish the degree at home. Even though it’s a beautiful idea and often very gratifying one to spend some time away from home, nevertheless some students might prefer to be close to their family and friend circle and not ready to be far away for a long period of time. Some student can have a sick mother that need an attention or a friend that a student is attached to. Even though at a young age students do have a lot of energy to travel, some would like to apply this energy to hard work and studying as opposed to traveling. Some students just do not wish to travel and universities should definitely take this into account.

Second point to be considered is the situation with foreign students as they have already traveled from a different country and have experience studying and sometimes working abroad. Many student come from all over the world to USA to receive an education: from India, Russia, Europe and other countries. Students bring their culture with them and arrive to university to study to promote their future and become successful in upcoming career. Most of them, have no interests in traveling to yet another country and that shall be definitely deliberated.

The third point is the financing of studying and living abroad, as many student could consider this a costly adventure and might opt out of it. The living expenses, airline tickets, food and clothes – all come up to a hefty sum of money and many students are not ready to pay for it even if they have a good loan agreement or financial aid, as after all the education is not free and the tuition have to be paid off.

Thus, even though studying abroad is a good and useful idea that could potentially help students to grow their personality and become much broader minded, many students might decide against it for many reasons including those discussed above, and, therefore, should not be made a requirement.