Planning a Year Abroad

So far in this Year Abroad series, I've written about the toughest challenges and the biggest advantages involved in doing a Year Abroad. And now in this final post of the series, I'll be discussing how to plan the year in order to get the most out of it. This will be in the form of a sort of step-by-step guide that will help you plan the Year Abroad of your dreams!

1) Think about your goals for the year

The first thing you need to do is think about any specific goals you want to accomplish during the year. Maybe there's a particular country or city you'd like to live in, or a particular type of placement you'd like to do?

Personally, I had three goals before I started planning anything:

• To spend the French part of my Year Abroad either in Paris or the south of France, or both. (I more or less accomplished this; I spent about a month in the south of France and 10 days in Paris overall. However, circumstances forced me to spend a longer amount of time in Normandy.)
• To work as a British Council English language teaching assistant. (I accomplished this in Austria!)
• To spend part of the year in Latin America. In particular, I was interested in the continent of South America, and Chile was the country that appealed to me the most. (In the end, after looking into placements in Peru, Costa Rica and Argentina, I chose to go and study in Santiago, Chile and had an incredible time!)

Once you have your placements sorted, you can think about other goals, such as places you'd like to travel to during the year. I had a couple of ideas for both semesters of my year:

• To visit Vienna and to spend a weekend in Italy (preferably Venice) during my semester in Austria. (I ended up going to both of these places, plus many more).
• To visit Valparaíso during my semester in Santiago, and if possible Argentina and the south of Chile. (I did manage to go to all three of these places, plus a few more, during the semester, but now that I have more confidence about travelling in South America, I feel like I could have travelled even more!)

It's an amazing feeling when you achieve these dreams one by one as the year progresses!

2) Be aware of how you'll have to plan the year

Here's what you need to know:

In general, you have from around the end of June to the middle of September to complete your Year Abroad, so actually about 15 months rather than 12!

Most universities require you to spend 30 weeks abroad (so not an entire year). This means you have ample time to fit in your placements within the 2nd year and 4th year of university.

If you just study one language, you have to spend at least 30 weeks in a country/countries that speak that language. If you study two languages, you have to spend at least 15 weeks in one country, and 15 weeks in another country. And if you study 3 languages, you have to spend at least 10 weeks in each of the three countries.

Most university and work placements last one or two semesters, which is ideal for students studying one or two languages. You can choose a two-semester placement or two one-semester placements, and if you want, you can pick up one or two extra short placements in the time before the first semester or after the second semester. If you study three languages (like I did), it's a bit trickier! You have to try to fit 10 weeks in one of the countries around the other two semesters. It's not easy, but it can be done.

Depending on the part of the world you're going to, the first semester will start somewhere between August and October, and will end at some point between December and February. The second semester will start sometime between February and April, and will end around June or July. So keep that in mind if you're trying to plan another placement around the two semesters. It's probably easier to do something before the first one starts and/or after the second one ends rather than in between the two.

3) Pick your placements

These are the five main options you have:

Paid work. When I was at university, we were allowed to find paid work in Europe but not in Latin America, probably because of the hassle of having to get a visa. Unfortunately, because of Brexit, this now may not be a viable option anywhere.

Studying. You can study abroad for one semester or two in a range of universities all over the world. I'd definitely recommend spending at least one semester studying abroad, as most people have a great experience. You have the chance to enjoy student life in a different country, without the pressure of having to get good grades for your degree!

Being a British Council English language teaching assistant. This is a really good placement to do if you're interested in teaching as a career. It also gives you a great opportunity to travel around your host country and beyond, as usually the pay is quite good and the working week is short. I can see on the British Council website that they're currently offering placements in Austria, Belgium, Québec, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. So there's a lot of choice! But keep in mind that the placements usually last two semesters; only Austria and Germany offer one-semester placements, and only Argentina offers a six-month placement.

Volunteering. This is a good option in Latin America, as there are quite a lot of voluntary placements in schools and charities over there. But be aware that sometimes you have to pay to volunteer, and it can be expensive. Volunteering is also an option in Europe, and is often easier to find than paid work. But again, I would advise you to be careful when looking for a placement. I decided to do a voluntary placement at an animal park in France, which turned out to be a very different experience to what I was expecting, and I ended up leaving after just a few days there.

Language courses. This is an expensive option, but very useful if you're trying to split the year across three countries, as you can choose the number of weeks you want to spend at the language school. Usually the courses are a lot of fun, and the lessons only take place in the mornings and early afternoons, leaving you free to spend the rest of the day however you want. And the schools often offer city tours, day trips to nearby places, and cultural activities, so you'll definitely have a great time!

Useful Tips

In this section, I'll share some more tips for getting the most out of a Year Abroad, plus some useful companies and organisations.

During the latter stages of my semester in Chile, I discovered a couple of great companies for travelling around the country: Chile Extreme and Emotion Tour Chile. They offer days out and longer trips around Chile and neighbouring countries. Worth checking out if you plan to spend time in South America!

An organisation I considered volunteering with was La Tortuga Feliz, based in Costa Rica. Sadly, it wasn't really a viable option for my Year Abroad, because it would be too expensive for me to spend more than a couple of weeks there. But it looks like an amazing thing to do (helping save turtles on a Caribbean beach) and it still remains on my bucket list!

Blue Stamp Travel is a great organisation for booking language courses and work experience placements in France, Spain and Germany. They can organise a placement and accommodation (usually with a host family) at very short notice, which is something that came in useful for me when I was in France!

It can be difficult to fit in as much travel as you'd like during the year, especially if you're working or studying full time. So it's a good idea to make the most of weekends. In South America, it's very easy and cheap to travel long distances by bus, and often these bus journeys run during the night. This means that you can go to a different region or country while you're sleeping on Friday night, get back by Monday morning, and you only have to pay for one night of accommodation in between! In continental Europe, it's also quite easy and cheap to travel overnight by train.

Don't panic if things don't work out! If you're studying three languages and one placement doesn't go to plan, it can be difficult to meet the requirements of the Year Abroad. But as long as you've tried your best, the university should let you "pass" the year and move on to final year. It happened to me (I only had 9 "official" weeks of placements in France), and I know I wasn't the only one. I just wish I'd known at the time that it wouldn't be an issue, as that would have saved me some stress!

Planning a Year Abroad can seem overwhelming at times - I remember going to endless Year Abroad talks in my second year of university and coming out each time feeling overloaded with information. But it's also a very exciting time! During the planning period, I thought of the year ahead as an opportunity to take on new challenges and go on an adventure, and in the end that was definitely what I got! If you focus on all the amazing things you're going to get out of the year, it will take a lot of the stress out of the whole planning process. Obviously at the moment, planning any kind of travel is very difficult due to Covid, but hopefully it won't be too long before things are back to normal again.

Whatever you choose to do and wherever you choose to go on your Year Abroad, it's pretty certain that you'll have a incredible time!

Laguna del Maule, Chile

Next up on the blog, I'll be back to business as usual and writing about a couple of very recent day trips I've been on. Yes, I've actually started travelling again! Local day trips and visits to family and friends are now allowed, and my parents and I have been making the most of that. Since the latest rule change, we've been to two new places, one of which was very unique indeed, and I'm excited to write about them soon!

Read Part 1 of this series here and Part 2 here!