If you’ve ever felt a pang of envy at language students heading abroad for a year’s placement, don’t despair: there is a possible cure for this. What you need to do is to drop in on your university’s international office, and ask them about international exchange programmes.
The big one: Erasmus has 150,000 students studying abroad each year
You’ll discover that there are many more opportunities out there for studying abroad than just language exchanges: science students, historians, nursing students, geographers, philosophers, you name it: students in every subject are accepted onto exchange programmes. But only the ones who get round to applying!
Many universities have particular exchange schemes with foreign institutions, so find out about these first of all. Then there’s a range of programmes available to students across UK higher education. To get you started, here is a quick intro to the best-known schemes – your exchange tutor will give you the full rundown.
Keele University’s Centre for International Exchange and Languages has published a fantastically useful online resource -Tick off to take off – to help you with the application process for studying abroad. Download their “online pre-departure orientation programme” and the interactive guide will take you expertly through step by step, save you hours of stressful work, and answer most all of your questions. Very informative and easy to use.
The Erasmus Programme is the European Commission’s educational programme for higher education, which was launched in 1987 with the aim of increasing student mobility within the European Community. It’s become a cultural as well as educational phenomenon, offering travel opportunities to 150,000 European students each year, across the whole range of academic subjects. Stories of students who’ve been on the programme are collected at Erasmus student experiences, and if their enthusiasm doesn’t fire you up then nothing will.
The British Association for American Studies (BAAS) has gathered links on exchange programmes involving British and US universities. There is also information at their website on BAAS award schemes and publications.
If you are studying at Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow or Nottingham University, ask your exchange tutor about Universitas 21. This is an international network of leading universities, which runs collaborative projects including exchange programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Students in any discipline can apply.
Finally, if you’re just coming up to graduation, and would like to spend a year or more in Japan, you might think of applying to the JET Programme, the Japanese government’s scheme for assistant language teachers. Now in its 21st year, the programme offers a year’s employment to graduates from 44 countries – around 1,000 currently from the UK. Contracts can be extended, by mutual consent with employers, for a further two years.
