Five reasons all Edi students should go abroad in their third year

Yes, there’s more to a year abroad than aesthetic pictures to make your friends jealous

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Like many students, I chose the University of Edinburgh for its excellent third-year exchange programme. After applying in my second year, I gained a place at Sciences Po Paris where I’m currently studying until May 2023.

Halfway through my first semester abroad, I’ve had the chance to reflect on my diverse experiences over such a short time. When talking to my friends back home, I often find it hard to convey the positives, normally I’m calling them after a long day in Paris, to ask for advice, or to catch up on the gossip I’m missing while I’m away.

However, there are many benefits to going abroad I’d like to tell them, as well as any new student thinking of an exchange. Though it feels like yesterday I departed Edinburgh, I can already see it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

So, to help you decide if studying abroad is right for you (and perhaps convince any politics students to pick Sciences Po Paris), I’ve narrowed down five reasons you should take an exchange in third year.

A shake-up

For many students, Scotland’s bachelor’s system might seem painfully long. An extra year of undergraduate education means an extra year to fill, and for those itching to travel while they’re young, it might sound like a prison sentence. If you think that after two years of Big Cheese nights, Meadows day-drinking and Civerinos slice you’ll be banging your head against the walls of Teviot, then a year abroad might be the shake-up you need.

Be warned, however, a shake-up means a shake-up. Studying abroad is no holiday, you’ll soon realise this as you begin the year-long process of required form-filling. Even after you arrive at your destination, it takes a while to adjust to a new place.

For those with really itchy feet, after a semester abroad you might get bored again. Then there’s the added upheaval of coming back to Edinburgh for fourth year, creating, as the exchange coordinators lovingly put it, reverse culture shock.

I can’t wait.

Learning new things in a new way

The most obvious reason for an exchange is to learn a new language or improve your existing skills, if you’re taking a language degree at Edinburgh, you’ll be going abroad anyway. For me, as I studied French in high school, Paris was the logical option. Although I can’t say I’ve improved massively (my classes are, mercifully, in English) I’m certainly practising it more than I would in Auld Reekie.

Beyond languages, studying abroad means learning in new ways. International students at Edinburgh will be aware of the many pedagogical systems around the world. At Sciences Po for instance, most classes take place in the late afternoon or evening, sometimes I have tutorials until 9 pm. Emphasis is put on oral presentations and group research projects too.

And, of course, like every spare moment in Paris, an espresso and cigarettes fill the 15 minute breaks between classes.

Talk about new routines, my new commute through the Louvre is almost as good as getting my shoes soaked crossing Bruntsfield Links

New experiences

While it’s not true a new country equates to a ‘new you’, it does offer new ways of being you. When you live abroad, new experiences greet you on every street corner. Who knows? You might find a new favourite food or genre of music.

Certainly, you’ll develop a fresh routine out of necessity; I was surprised in Paris to find dinner is very late, lunch very long, and breakfast simply the day’s first coffee and cigarettes. Pains au chocolat are for children and tourists.

Yet I was even more surprised when I stopped waking up early to make porridge and going for runs, as I do in Edinburgh. Although I plan to slip back to my old ways once I’m home, titbits of this different lifestyle will remain with me.

Even the experiences that come before the ‘going’ abroad, for example, visa applications (cheers Brexit), are valuable lessons for adult life.

In Paris I’m performing poetry open mics for the first time with Spoken Word Paris, something I might never have tried staying in Edinburgh.

Re-appreciate home

Sometimes it takes a little distance to know you truly love someone, the same is true of home. Going from a community of similar people to the only one of a kind in a community is a clarifying experience. It’s both strange and wonderful to be the only Scot I know in Paris (though then again, studying at Edinburgh isn’t too different).

People are interested in me in a way they aren’t at home, without context, otherwise everyday parts of my Scottish life are fascinating to others. In conversation with a new Chilean friend, I was even dubbed ‘exotic’.

Being far away will make you miss the little things. A lack of pubs in Paris has led me to spend my weekends at the same ‘Scottish bar’, The Highlander. If you’re visiting you should check it out, think the gift shops on the Royal Mile, but opposite Notre Dame. Like the Dougie Maclean song, I love Caledonia the most when I’m far from it.

When I return to Edinburgh during term breaks, I’m always more grateful and more hopeful about my degree there. You’ll never appreciate quite how good Scottish tap water is until on a 35oC day in Paris you must chew through what they call l’eau.

Via Instagram @thehighlander_paris

Develop empathy

Finally, ever heard the expression ‘don’t judge someone till you’ve walked a mile in their shoes?’ Depending on your destination, an exchange means several hundred, even thousands of miles. For resident UK students, you might be good friends with some internationals. At the same time, your friend group might extend no farther than the English Channel. Either way, an exchange is probably the best way to show you how it feels to be those people who travelled from across the world to study at Edinburgh.

As a minimum-wage waiter in a tourist hotspot, I’ve had my petty niggles over language or cultural differences before. Studying abroad, however, especially in a country with a different majority language, can help you see through the other’s eyes.

How frightening it is, how exciting to live in a completely dissimilar place, where people eat differently, dress differently and even greet each other differently. I still can’t figure out la bise, but Parisians don’t seem to understand the appeal of a good old-fashioned hug.

If after reading the above you’re still undecided, the University of Edinburgh Go Abroad page has excellent information on the nitty-gritty of student exchanges. There’s also a Go Abroad Facebook group for past, present, and future exchange students, offering anecdotal advice while helping you to make connections.

At the end of the day, whether you choose to spend your third year in Edinburgh or not, chances are you’ll have just as good a time if you put your mind to it.

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