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!

Year Abroad: The Best Bits

In the first part of this Year Abroad series, I wrote about some of the challenges I came up against during my own Year Abroad, all of which are fairly common issues students abroad face, and I shared some tips on how to deal with them. So it makes sense that the second part of this series should focus on the biggest advantages of doing a Year Abroad!

While it's true that some students have a less positive experience than others, I think everyone finishes the year with improved language skills and a sense of accomplishment. My personal experience was that it was the best year (well, 15 months actually!) of my life so far, and it changed me in ways I'd never expected.

In this article, I'll be writing about the six best things that happened to me during my Year Abroad. I'd say that most people who go to live abroad experience the majority, if not all, of these things, so hopefully this post can serve as inspiration for anyone debating over whether to do something like this!

Travelling

Mendoza, Argentina

One of the main reasons that people decide to live in another country is because of the opportunities it gives you to explore a different part of the world. I split my Year Abroad across three countries (France, Austria and Chile) and had the chance to visit several regions in each of them, as well as five neighbouring countries (Italy, Slovakia, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Argentina). Five of those countries were ones I'd never been to before, and South America was also an entirely new continent for me, so I finished the year feeling like I'd seen a lot more of the world. It's an amazing experience to get to spend an extended period of time discovering different cities, regions and countries and learning about their cultures and languages. I'd say the most memorable travel adventures of my year would include my trips to Valparaíso, the south of Chile, Vaduz, Bratislava and Udine, as well as my few weeks in the south of France. But to be honest, I loved nearly all of the places I went to!

Experiencing a Different Culture

Musée du Louvre in Paris, France

When you spend several months in another country, it's inevitable that you'll learn quite a bit about its culture. Obviously it takes years to fully understand a culture, but you can definitely learn many interesting things within a short space of time! Some of the cultural activities I participated in included visiting art galleries and exhibitions in France, learning how to do a traditional dance in Austria, and cooking some local recipes at a university workshop in Chile. And I also learnt about the customs of daily life in each country; for example, Pünktlichkeit (punctuality) is highly valued in Austria, whereas in Chile, people often show up to events at least half an hour later than planned! It's really interesting to find out things such as this, and it also helps you learn how to become a more adaptable person.

Improving Your Language Skills

Sargans, Switzerland

Of course, if you're studying a languages degree, the main goal of the Year Abroad is to become fluent in the languages you're studying. (Well, at least in theory, that's the main goal of the year. 😉) The whole reason universities include a Year Abroad as part of their syllabus is that it's so much easier to pick up a language when you're actually living in a country where it's spoken. I would say that if you spend a semester or a year abroad, and you make the effort to speak your target language on a daily basis, you'll certainly become very fluent. In terms of the languages I was studying, my French was already quite fluent at the start of the year, but it still improved a lot during my weeks in the country (though sadly, I'm now quite out of practice!). My German was pretty poor when I arrived in Austria, and because I was working in a mainly English-speaking environment there, I still wasn't fluent when I left four months later. However, my listening skills had improved immensely, and I can thank the German versions of Say Yes To The Dress and Come Dine With Me for that! As for my Spanish, it was definitely the target language that I improved in the most. Chile was the country where I spent the longest amount of time, and not everyone speaks English there, so I had lots of opportunities to practice. And I also picked up a whole new vocabulary while I was there. Qué bacán po!

Gaining Work Experience

The scenery outside my schools in Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Austria

A Year Abroad can be the perfect opportunity to gain some useful work experience - something many students are lacking in. I'd done some casual work during my Gap Year, but I'd never officially been employed prior to my Year Abroad. So my placement as an British Council English language teaching assistant in two schools in Austria was my first "proper" job and a really valuable experience for me. It was great to get to know the world of work better, and especially to be introduced to the sector of teaching English as a foreign language, which is the same sector I'm working in now! I also ended up doing some shorter work experience placements in Rouen, France: one in a veterinary clinic and one in a cat café. Neither are fields that I expect to work in again, but I loved spending time with all the cute animals! 

Finding Friendship or Love

Cerro San Cristóbal in Santiago, Chile

If you do a Year Abroad, you'll meet a lot of new people, some of whom may turn out to be lifelong friends or even something more. Of course these things don't always work out, which is something I wrote about in my previous post, but some people do find love abroad and stay together afterwards. I am one of the lucky ones, as I met my boyfriend Claudio in June 2018 when I was living in Santiago, and we're still together nearly three years on. I think it's great to have a boyfriend from a different country; we teach each other interesting things about our languages and cultures, and we act as each other's tour guides when we're exploring Chile and the UK! Soon I'll be moving back to his city, Santiago, for at least a year, which I'm really excited about. It just goes to show how much a Year Abroad can change your life and open up a new future for you.

Personal Growth

Cerro Manquehue in Santiago, Chile

All things considered, I would have to say that the best thing about completing a Year Abroad is how much it makes you grow as a person. Before I started the year, it seemed crazy and overwhelming that I was going to go and work in a different country for several months, and then travel to the most faraway country in South America on my own and live there for half a year, not to mention fitting ten weeks in a third country around both of these things. But I did it, even though I didn't always believe I would. There were plenty of challenges along the way, but they helped me become stronger and more adaptable as a person. Overall, I'd say that planning and completing the year is one of my proudest achievements.

So those are just some of the best things that I gained from doing a Year Abroad, but it's by no means an exhaustive list! The advantages of doing something like this are huge, and all I would say to anyone who's undecided is just to go for it. You definitely won't regret it!

The final part of this series will be about planning a Year Abroad and will be on its way very soon...

Read Part 1 of this series here and Part 3 here!

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!