Is it a good decision for students to go abroad for a year?

Many students want to go abroad in the 11^th grade. Often they choose countries which are far away in order to meet people with a different way of life. Nevertheless there aren’t only positive aspects to go away. Some problems could come up which should be regarded seriously:

Firstly, you can not expect to find a host familiy with similar habits to your familiy. Actually it often happens that host familiy and student don’t fit together and real problems could come up. E.g. a friend of mine who spends a year in the USA had to change her host familiy two times.

Secondly German students miss a whole school year, so they often have to repeat the grade when they come back.

Finally, in other countries there’s often a different school system so it can be hard to manage school with other focuses, in addition to the foreign language, you have to cope with, too.

But many students manage to spend a year abroad so there are also a lot of positive aspects:

That means that it’s always good to get to know a different culture. Abroad you have to manage your life alone and solve all problmes on your own. These experiences prepare you for your later life so this definitely improves your skills an self- considence.

But the most important reason to go away is to improve the foreign language that you can speak it fluently after a year.

These are the reasons why the most students choose the USA: it’s far away from home and its language is spoken world wide.

In my opinion everybody who considers to go away should absolutely do it, because it’s an important and good experience.

by Alissa T.