Year Abroad: Dealing With Problems

As promised, I'm going to be writing a series of posts about my experiences of completing a Year Abroad, with some tips for getting the best out of a Year Abroad, and this post is the first of three. This series is going to be mainly aimed at modern languages students who go to study and/or work in one or more foreign countries as part of their degree, as that's my area of experience, but some of the advice will be relevant to anyone who's planning to spend an extended amount of time abroad, whether that's for university, work, a Gap Year or any other reason.

This first post is going to focus on some of the problems students come up against during the Year Abroad, and how best to cope with them. It's natural that doing something like this will involve challenges, and that's part of the fun of it, but it's also good to know how to manage these challenges so that they don't put a dampener on the year. 

So here's a list of some of the issues I faced during my own Year Abroad (which are all fairly common problems), and some tips on how to deal with them!

Nerves

Montpellier, France

Personally, I struggled a lot with nerves both before, and at times during, my Year Abroad. I was a very shy person before I started the year, so the prospect of living, working and studying in three different countries across two different continents was quite overwhelming. To make things worse, my first placement as an au pair in the south of France went very badly wrong, and I had to come home after just 10 days. Following this unpleasant experience, I was having serious doubts about the rest of the year, and even considered switching my four-and-a-half-month placement in Chile for a three-month placement in Spain. But then I went to Montpellier in France to spend a few weeks studying at a language school for my second placement of the year. Those few weeks were a really great time, filled with travel and fun moments, and they made me realise that I wanted to make sure I had the Year Abroad I'd always dreamed of. So I decided I would go to South America after all - a decision I definitely didn't regret. And although I still felt nervous before starting my semesters in Austria and Chile, I wasn't crippled with nerves like I had been before going to France.

My tips: It's completely normal to be nervous before moving abroad - I think you wouldn't be human if you weren't! But it's important to remember why you wanted to do the Year Abroad in the first place; usually it's because you want to experience a new culture, travel to exciting places, and improve your language skills. If you focus your thoughts on these positive things, rather than the things that could potentially go wrong, you can convert your nerves into anticipation!

Bad Employers

Rennes, France

Finding jobs abroad can be a challenge, so it's pretty common to end up doing a job that's not your first choice, just in order to complete the requirements of the Year Abroad. And unfortunately, many students end up working for bad employers. This is something that happened to me twice in France, in July 2017 and July 2018. I hadn't been successful in applying for any of the "proper jobs" that had been advertised by my university, so I was forced to look for more informal kinds of jobs on the internet. The first of those jobs was the aforementioned au pair job in the south of France, in which I had to deal with daily insults from the parents, behavioural problems from the child, 15-hour days, and no pay (although it was meant to be paid work). The second job was at an animal park in Brittany, where I'd agreed to work for free as an English-speaking tour guide in exchange for accommodation. However, the job turned out to involve putting frozen food in a microwave rather than showing tourists around, and the accommodation was a dirty, wasp-infested caravan. (I ended up having to sleep on a table in the cafeteria!) That time I didn't even last a week!

My tips: It goes without saying that you should research any job offer really well before you accept it. If you're not able to find any suitable work, get in touch with your university, who will hopefully be able to help you. And if you have to leave a job, try not to worry. Usually your university will let you pass the Year Abroad, even if you haven't completed all the requirements, as long as you've tried your best to do so. I passed mine with only 9 "official" weeks of placements in France rather than the required 10, as overall I'd spent 11 weeks in the country.

Travel Disasters

Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria

Most people want to travel a lot during their Year Abroad, but not every trip goes to plan. Probably the biggest mishap I had was when I was trying to get back to Feldkirchen in Kärnten (the town in Austria where I was living) from Vienna. The day I left, there was a massive wind storm affecting travel in the city, meaning I was left waiting in the main train station for hours, constantly watching the noticeboard only to see every train to Kärnten getting cancelled. Eventually, I managed to get on to a crowded train to the nearby city of Wiener Neustadt, from where I planned to get another train in the direction I needed to go. But two minutes before that train was about to arrive, the platform number was changed, and I ended up missing it. To make matters worse, there wasn't going to be another train until the next day! In the end, I had to spend the night in a hotel in a somewhat dodgy part of the city. Thankfully, the next day was one of my days off, so I didn't miss work, and everything worked out fine in the end!

My tips: It's natural that not everything will go to plan when travelling, especially if you're in a place you're not familiar with. Just try not to panic when things go wrong, and try to think logically about how to solve the problem. Often you'll end up with some fun stories to tell later on!

Language Barriers

Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Austria

For many students, living in a country where they speak a different language is a big challenge. I had some difficulties speaking German when I was living in Austria, particularly when I first arrived there with a pretty low level in the language. And it also took me at least a couple of weeks to adjust to Chilean Spanish, a dialect which is notoriously fast and which has a very different vocabulary to the vocabulary I learned at college and university. 

My tips: You just have to go for it and practice as much as you can; otherwise you'll never improve! However, it can actually be hard sometimes to find opportunities to speak the language of the country you're living in, especially if your placement is in an English-speaking workplace. So my advice is to speak to native speaker friends or colleagues in their language whenever possible, instead of automatically using English. Another good idea is to go to language exchange events, which are pretty common in big international cities, and which are also a great way to meet new people. But be warned that a lot of people will be there to practice their English!

Breakups

Santiago, Chile

Sadly, breakups are common during the Year Abroad, because distance can put a strain on some relationships. It's well known that many students living abroad end up breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend from back home. And it's also pretty rare for relationships between couples who meet during the Year Abroad to work out (although I know from experience that there are exceptions!). I personally had a bad experience of a breakup while I was studying in Chile. Shortly after I first arrived in Santiago, I started dating a guy from my host university, but unfortunately, the relationship quickly turned toxic. After a very turbulent three months, it finally ended for good, leaving me devastated. This was definitely the biggest setback I had to deal with during the entire year. At first I just wanted to cut the semester short and go back home to England, but after about a week I realised that I couldn't let this ruin what was meant to be one of the most exciting times of my life. I decided to make the most of the rest of the semester, and it turned out to be far better than I ever would have expected. I actually met my boyfriend just a matter of weeks later, and we're still together nearly three years on!

My tips: As hard as it sounds, you just have to be philosophical about these things and accept that if a relationship doesn't survive the Year Abroad, it probably isn't meant to be. But I know how tough it is to get through a breakup when you're living in a foreign country. One of the things that helped me most was having something to look forward to - I booked a trip to the south of Chile in order to convince myself to stay in the country for the rest of the semester. And by the time the trip came around, things were so much better! Because no matter how much pain you're in, you will get through it eventually, and probably quicker than you think.

Finishing the Year Abroad 

Puerto Fuy, Chile

No one ever tells you this, but one of the most difficult things about doing a Year Abroad is finishing it and having to go back home! It's hard to adjust back to a life of less fun and more responsibilities - one minute you're having a great time travelling the world, and the next minute you're back at university in a cold, grey city in England, struggling under a mountain of work. I certainly missed life abroad (particularly life in South America) once I was back in Nottingham, and I soon realised that I wanted to get a job after graduation that would allow me to live in Chile and travel in Latin America again. (Over two years on I've got the job, but the whole global pandemic thing has prevented me from actually starting it yet. Hopefully, I won't have to wait too much longer!)

My tips: It's a nice idea to document your Year Abroad in some way, whether that's by writing a blog or by keeping a scrapbook or something similar, so you can look back on it and relive all those great memories in the future. And if the year has given you the urge to be back abroad again, you can start looking for a job in a different country for when you graduate. Teaching English as a foreign language is the career path I've gone down, and it's a really great one if you're looking to travel and learn about different cultures.

These issues are all things that I didn't write about in much detail in my Year Abroad blog at the time, as I wanted to keep a record of the year that was mainly positive. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that a Year Abroad can't possibly be amazing 100 percent of the time, and that the challenges you face while living in a different country can actually really help you to grow as a person, and can make you appreciate the good times even more.

But it also must be said that the advantages of doing a Year Abroad far outweigh the difficulties, and that the vast majority of the time, life in a different country is great fun. In fact, many people (myself included) say it's the best thing they've ever done. 

In the second part of this series, which will be coming very soon, I'll be writing about the best bits of the Year Abroad in order to fully demonstrate just how much it can change your life for the better!

Read Part 2 of this series here and Part 3 here!