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

Supporters for the argument that colleges and universities should require students to study in a foreign country for at least one semester may take account of the benefits students can gain from the abroad study experience. However, they ignore the fact that it is not guaranteed to be beneficial to students. And it is also not reasonable to require every student to study in a foreign country because of a bunch of restraints.

Admittedly, students might learn more knowledge and skills from study abroad. First of all, a student might learn a different language in a foreign country. It would be easier to pick up a foreign language in a country where people speak that language. Secondly, a student can broad his horizon from study in a foreign country. He can learn more about another culture—the way of thinking and solving problems, from cooperation with foreign students and professors. Also, to his particular major, he could learn the most advanced theories in that foreign country, which may transcend what has been found in his own country. Finally, besides these intellectual skills, a student could also gain more living skills from living in a foreign country. Freshmen are those who have already been adults and lived independently. It would be a challenge or a rare chance for them to live without any help from their parents in an unfamiliar country. Indeed, more and more parents and schools have realized these advantages and been encouraged to send their children abroad. It should be rewarding to some students, but it also could be worthless and unreasonable for other students.

Rather than assuring to be improved by study abroad, some students would have little change after studying in a foreign country. One important assumption for a student to learn more about a different culture is that he should get involved in the communication and discussion with the local people in the foreign country. Whereas lots of international students only hang out, live and study with students come from the same country, being shy or timid to make foreign friends. In this case, little new culture could them learn. Moreover, some students, who have little self-control and just enfranchise from the supervision of their parents would do whatever they want but not study. Some of them would play video games days and nights, resulting in failure in courses and being kicked out. Requiring students to study in a foreign country, on one hand, could be beneficial to some ones; on the other hand, it could be bad for others.

Besides the above flexible conditions, there are other constraints one cannot change in a short term. To a rich family, it might be easy for the parents to afford their children’s tuition fee; to a moderate one, it might be not so easy but still possible; while to a penurious one, it might be hard for the family to pay the tuition fee in a local university, let alone to afford the expensive expense in a foreign country. Another fact is that students with disabilities might need special care to help them finish their post-secondary education. In a local college, they are permitted to study with the custody of their parents or other custodians. For this kind of students, it might be impossible for them to study abroad. Should this requirement of study abroad be settled as a policy, it would have detrimental effect to the fairness of education.

Although study in a foreign country, as a global trend, could be helpful to the growth of a student no matter in his study or his life, we should also realize the individuality of students, in the sense that study abroad could not guarantee improvement for every student. What’s more, there are other objective factors should also be considered, such as the economic condition. As far as I am concerned, the best way is that colleges and universities can suggest and encourage some high-achieving students to study in foreign countries, but it cannot require their students to study abroad.