Post: #1

I am a college freshman and looking ahead to the future. Any of you done Study Abroad programs in foreign countries? If so, which ones would you recommend and why? Personally I'm eyeing a potential sophomore year in the DR and a junior year in Brazil, but that of course is extremely sketchy and tentative.

Post: #2

(10-26-2013 10:02 PM)Agastya Wrote:  I am a college freshman and looking ahead to the future. Any of you done Study Abroad programs in foreign countries? If so, which ones would you recommend and why? Personally I'm eyeing a potential sophomore year in the DR and a junior year in Brazil, but that of course is extremely sketchy and tentative.

I'm looking for this as well. But here we have the Erasmus (Erasfuck)-program so i'm going to look into that. Might look for Brazil or something as well.
What is important to me, is that I want to feel accepted in a foreign country. Brazilians are warm, open and welcoming, they would invite a foreigner to join them. This is definitely not the case for every country. So maybe some people who have studying-abroad experience could tell us about the 'welcoming' factor in several countries.

Post: #3

Spent a semester in Bangkok myself. Highlight of my college, for sure. A few general takeaways.
1 - Go somewhere interesting and challenging. Don't be the moron spending a $25k for semester in England.
2 - You're going to spend more money than you plan on on weekend trips, travel, etc. So make sure cost of living is reasonable in your country.
3 - Find a program with a decent balance between "academic" and "fuck around". I was able to to get 12 finance credits to come back to my home university....on a pass/fail basis. Pretty ideal since a) my graduation plan wasn't screwed up and b) I didn't have to worry about my poor grades in Thailand ruining my US GPA.
4 - Learn a new language if possible. My biggest regret was not getting decent at Thai when I was there.

Post: #4

France, Grenoble if you love ski. Also, one of the only french universities that have relations with Porto Alegre in Brazil so lot and lot of Brazilians with german descent... good college town...I simply loved this place. French culture, good wine, different education system (very critical), good food, cheese...you have to go to France.

( I just realised you were looking for a program, my univeristy had a bi-lateral exchange, didn't have any other choice, I don't know about the USA though...)

Post: #5

I'm doing my study abroad right now. I would recommend:
1- Poland, Czech or hungary: I heard it is cheap, the courses aren't that difficult, so you have a lot of free time, and the girls are hot and easy. Most guys go there to get laid. So go to Poland if you don't have a lot of money.
2.- US, UK, Australia: if you have money, I would definitely choose English speaking country. The courses are much higher quality and it attracts the best students in the world thus best quality of people. You can go to those second world countries but the quality of people are lower. This is what I found out and I wished I chose Australia or something.

Finances, this hugely depends which country you choose but always keep in mind you will always spend more money than what you think you are going to.

Ask yourself what is more important. Do you want good quality education, or do you want a semester of good weather but courses suck? For example UK is known for good quality education but the weather is awful. You have to set your priorities and make your final choice.

I recommend you get a local buddy. Somebody who knows the ins and outs. This is important in some countries because there are a lot of people who pray on niave foreigners and rip you off, charge you more than you should have paid for something, or even worse.

Post: #6

I spent a semester abroad in Japan before I even started university and proceeded to do three more semesters in China (one at a time, spaced out) working on my four year degree.

If you are serious about making the most of study abroad, I recommend a full year minimum. While employers do like the sound of "international experience," a couple months barely scrapes the surface.

The number one skill you can learn while studying abroad is language. You'll possibly learn some useful soft-skills, but that's harder to quantify with employers than passing a standardized language test.

You'll need a minimum of a year to get that, unless you're super talented and you'll probably be too busy partying anyway.

I recommend talking to the language profs at your uni about writing an equivalence test for credit. Study abroad independently for about two years and then come back and get a year or so of credit. It'll take you longer to finish college, but the language skills you've acquired will jumpstart you past the entry level positions most people are stuck with after college.

You'll save money anyway, given the cost of one year's tuition, two years abroad at foreign tuition costs (in more affordable destinations) will be cheaper than a year at home.

Post: #7

It all depends on which study abroad programs your school is partnered with and what they will accept for credit.

I went on a program with SIT (http://sit.edu/) and what makes them cool is they are really focused on cultural immersion.

You will spend your time actively traveling around the country you choose and living in homestays with families there. They really focus on giving you an encompassing perspective of the different types of places in the country. For example, I spent time living with families in the very modern capital city and in villages in abject poverty.

I think it is easy to go on a study abroad program and just hang out with fellow Anglospherians. With this program, you're sort of forced to interact with the culture which I thought was a very cool experience. If you are interested in a certain country/culture (and SIT has a ton of countries to choose from) then this would be a strong option.

Academics were the only negative for me - the educational experience is more about experiencing culture. But I certainly wasn't traveling to find good quality courses.

For cultural immersion, SIT totally gets a thumbs up from me.

Good luck with your search! Make sure you make the right one and do your research

Post: #8

Dude, I'm on exchange right now. It's the most incredible experience of my life. Roosh is a big advocate of learning another language as am I for three reasons.
1) You're perception of the world is coloured and limited by the words you can use to communicate and express yourself, knowing another language helps broaden your mind.
2) Knowing another language helps you appreciate the connotations and subtleties of your own language
3) Knowing another language helps you experience another culture.

I disagree with the former poster who said choose an English speaking country. Choose a south American or Eastern European country to experience a different kind, not necessarily better, not neccessarily worse, just different kind of woman. I'm in southern France in a small university town of less than 100k people. There are hot Americans and hot French girls but it's the German girls from remote German towns and Morrocan girls with traditional values who make me want to step up and provide and be a real man rather than just using them as a cum dumpster. It's a strange feeling cause no girl from Aus, Eng or US has ever made me feel like that.

Post: #9

Cairns, AUS. No ifts and or buts about it.

Post: #10

(10-27-2013 08:44 PM)Pyre Wrote:  Cairns, AUS. No ifts and or buts about it.

Care to elaborate?

Post: #11

(10-27-2013 05:40 PM)Suits Wrote:  I spent a semester abroad in Japan before I even started university and proceeded to do three more semesters in China (one at a time, spaced out) working on my four year degree.

If you are serious about making the most of study abroad, I recommend a full year minimum. While employers do like the sound of "international experience," a couple months barely scrapes the surface.

The number one skill you can learn while studying abroad is language. You'll possibly learn some useful soft-skills, but that's harder to quantify with employers than passing a standardized language test.

You'll need a minimum of a year to get that, unless you're super talented and you'll probably be too busy partying anyway.

I recommend talking to the language profs at your uni about writing an equivalence test for credit. Study abroad independently for about two years and then come back and get a year or so of credit. It'll take you longer to finish college, but the language skills you've acquired will jumpstart you past the entry level positions most people are stuck with after college.

You'll save money anyway, given the cost of one year's tuition, two years abroad at foreign tuition costs (in more affordable destinations) will be cheaper than a year at home.

Yes, I agree with everything said here.

If you can squeeze it in, do a full time summer internship during the summer before or summer after your year abroad.

As he mentioned, you should do an entire year. I strongly believe this and if I could do college again I would have spent an entire year in China instead of just one semester.

He is also spot on about language. Work intensely hard and date local women to gain as much of an edge as you can. You don't only want to learn the proper/formal grammar but you also need to be able to use it in social settings as well.

Try to get in with high class people and high class chicks if you can. This will get you far.

Top priorities, IMHO:

1. Raise GPA and knock out credits as much as possible

2. Maximize language fluency

3. Internships in target city to build local network

4. Date high class women or befriend high class people to build local network

5. Plant "flags" - if you are near banking bases like Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, make sure you open an offshore bank account. There are increasing capital controls and I believe BoA and JPMorgan have both totally shut down outbound wire transfers. This goes to the rest of the forum too. Open foreign accounts while you can.

Capital controls have arrived.


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I think that Mandarin and Spanish are the most important and useful languages to know. I actually think that Spanish is a bit more useful than Mandarin. I say this because every gringo entrepreneur I know in Latin America who has found success is fluent in Spanish. In contrast, most successful China entrepreneurs I know actually do NOT speak Mandarin and get by fine without translators or assistants. That's just my two cents. It's obviously way easier to navigate China if you do speak fluent Mandarin.

Don't waste your time with something like Italian or German. Pick a market of the future and drive a hard base in cultural understanding, business connections, academic connections, setting up bank accounts in local business bases. For that last point, I mean that if you are going to go to Colombia, open up an account in Panama. If you are going to Indonesia/Malaysia/Thailand, open a bank account in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Know who you are. Pick a competitive advantage that you can talk about when you hit the ground. If you meet a local billionaire tycoon, what can you say to him to make him remember you and want to meet again? What value can you add?

---

Your twenties are going to fly by you, so use this period of time to intensely concentrate on building a global network and setting yourself up with as many internationalized options as possible in the context of people, opportunities, careers, finance, etc etc

The door is closing. The US government is openly blocking off opportunities for you to internationalize. Most of these efforts are specific to finance and moving money. You've been warned.

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My two cents.

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Post: #12

Go abroad every summer on summer exchange programs and/or internships.

Then do your entire junior year abroad.

I would pick Asia and Latin America. Decide which one of these you think is more important to your future. Then do summer before sophomore year in priority 2 country and then your entire junior year, plus both summers, in priority 1 country.

If your first priority is Asia and your second priority is Latin America, it might look something like this:

Summer after Freshman Year: summer semester in Santiago or Bogota - or possibly an internship

Summer after Sophomore Year: summer internship in Guangzhou

Junior Year: semester abroad in Shanghai

Junior Year: internship with Siemens Shanghai and attempt to launch a tech startup

Summer after Junior Year: full time internship with Euro/US/UK multinational or continue running your tech startup - try to either make the business work or get a full time job offer after your internship ends

Senior year: coast to the end and graduate knowing you have a full time offer or try to get hired locally - or maybe even freeze or drop out of school if your business is seriously taking off

Post: #13

If you're interested in Thailand at all, check out Asia Exchange, it's a Finnish company that charges about 1400 euros per semester(tuition included). You can choose between Kasetsart and Siam Universities, I'd go with Kaset, as it's a much better school. Though Siam has better girls in my experience. I got a full 15 hours of credits last trip. They also try to keep most classes Mon-Thurs and give long weekends frequently, as they encourage traveling.

They recently raised their price by about $1000 for Americans but they're pretty easy to talk down. I got the entire markup removed in exchange for promoting AE at my schools International Studies Program.

I would definitely recommend a full year. I was only there for one semester which ended up as 7 months because of the summer, and I still wasn't ready to leave yet. Now I'm getting ready to go for another 7 months this December and I'll hopefully have some solid Thai by the time that's over.

Post: #14

I dropped out of college. But I'm doing an indefinite "study a broad" program all over the world.

Post: #15

(11-02-2013 02:56 PM)iop890 Wrote:  If you're interested in Thailand at all, check out Asia Exchange, it's a Finnish company that charges about 1400 euros per semester(tuition included). You can choose between Kasetsart and Siam Universities, I'd go with Kaset, as it's a much better school. Though Siam has better girls in my experience. I got a full 15 hours of credits last trip. They also try to keep most classes Mon-Thurs and give long weekends frequently, as they encourage traveling.

They recently raised their price by about $1000 for Americans but they're pretty easy to talk down. I got the entire markup removed in exchange for promoting AE at my schools International Studies Program.

I would definitely recommend a full year. I was only there for one semester which ended up as 7 months because of the summer, and I still wasn't ready to leave yet. Now I'm getting ready to go for another 7 months this December and I'll hopefully have some solid Thai by the time that's over.

This is a solid idea IMO.

If you want to combine Asia with affordable prices and hot chicks then Bangkok is a very good option.

You have a ton of destinations at your doorstep for a cheap round trip flight fee of between 50-300 USD with all the budget airlines that are popping up.




If you are based out of BKK, here are some places you can travel to for pleasure/tourism or for business purposes within a 3 hour flight radius:

-Singapore

-Kuala Lumpur

-Phuket

-Pattaya

-Koh (all of them)

-Chiang Mai

-Yangon (Myanmar)

-Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Guangzhou

-Kunming

-Vietnam

-Manila/Philippines (I think they are within 3 hours, not positive)

-Bali/Jakarta/Indonesia

-Laos

-Cambodia


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TRIPS TO TAKE

-Surfing in Bali

-Setting up bank accounts or companies in Singapore and Hong Kong

-Gambling in Macau and Singapore

-Debauchery tour in Philippines

-Get blazed out of your mind in Laos

-Shoot AKs in Cambodia

-Muay Thai training in Koh Samui or Phuket

-Hiking, biking, elephants, and tigers in Chiang Mai

-Go back in time by visiting Yangon

-Set up a kickstarter campaign to manufacture your own products out of Shenzhen/Guangzhou or Thailand, which is in itself a manufacturing hub and launch an ecommerce business

-

BKK is a good low-cost base to live and party while also being a central air hub that you can use to jump off to other spots.

Post: #16

(10-27-2013 08:44 PM)Pyre Wrote:  Cairns, AUS. No ifts and or buts about it.

For what reason do you suggest this.

There is only one university in Cairns (JCU) and even by Australian standards it's a tiny outpost, of an unremarkable university, with a student population of a mere 4000 which is far too small to make any good connections, not to mention the city of Cairns and entire region has no significant business environment for a hungry student to benefit from.

Cairns is basically good for partying hard (it's to Australians, as a place like Cancun is to Americans), swooping British, French, German & Scandinavian tourists, and for doing world class SCUBA diving. It's extremely expensive, the USA is hardly cheap to live in, but Cairns would require a budget 30% larger at least. Coming to Cairns would be a great way to blow lots of money, gain no language skills, gain no business connections, but you will have a lot of fun. I love Cairns and all of Far North Queensland but for study abroad, no thanks.

For a student looking into study abroad it'd be far more beneficial to choose a business centre in a country that speaks the language he wants. This way he can learn a language, and once he gains proficiency can perhaps take an opportunity to do some internships in that country and make long term connections for employment and entrepreneurship. Preferably it'd be somewhere that is relatively cheap compared to where he currently lives and studies. For Spanish Bogota or Buenos Aires. For Portuguese Sao Paulo. For Mandarin go to Shanghai or a manufacturing heavy city like Guangzhou. In all of these places you'll get the benefit of a new language, culture, foreign chicks and potential for work experience and networking.


not even any universities in Cairns (unless you count marine research outposts of some of Australia's universities).

Post: #17

If anyone is interested in Mexico, The Caribbean islands (including Cuba) or Central America (in particular, Guatemala, El Salvador, & Nicaragua) study abroad programs let me know. The program I went on was life changing and I'd be happy to point someone towards it.

The language learning was beyond compare, and I had experiences most people don't even dream about (smoking cigars with a couple certified ex-guerrillas on a lonely mountaintop in the rainforest, getting hospitalized in a 3rd world country, meeting business, church and government officials I'd never have the chance to meet on my own). Then again, if you're on this forum, you probably do dream about some of those things...

Post: #18

unless youre studying chinese language, dont study in china. even the best schools here have no international respect

Post: #19

(11-10-2013 01:59 AM)clever alias Wrote:  unless youre studying chinese language, dont study in china. even the best schools here have no international respect

I think you're missing the point. I studied at the best business school in Bangkok. Does the bschool name have international recognition in New York, Chicago, or San Fran? Of course it doesn't. While my uni was literally the Wharton of Thailand, I wouldn't expect anyone stateside to recognize the name like a 'harvard' or 'stanford', etc...(although my peers were literally of similar caliber academics wise. super sharp.)

China/Hong Kong has plenty of very good universities for studying abroad at as a westerner, regardless of a student exclusively focuses on learning Chinese. Fudan, Peking, CUHK, HKUST, Uni HK....All of which would be a great experience for a 20 year old American kid with aspirations in international commerce.

If not, my buddy who spent a year at Fudan, which single handedly got him a gig at Google, might suggest otherwise.

Post: #20

(11-10-2013 04:15 AM)trader Wrote:  

(11-10-2013 01:59 AM)clever alias Wrote:  unless youre studying chinese language, dont study in china. even the best schools here have no international respect

I think you're missing the point. I studied at the best business school in Bangkok. Does the bschool name have international recognition in New York, Chicago, or San Fran? Of course it doesn't. While my uni was literally the Wharton of Thailand, I wouldn't expect anyone stateside to recognize the name like a 'harvard' or 'stanford', etc...(although my peers were literally of similar caliber academics wise. super sharp.)

China/Hong Kong has plenty of very good universities for studying abroad at as a westerner, regardless of a student exclusively focuses on learning Chinese. Fudan, Peking, CUHK, HKUST, Uni HK....All of which would be a great experience for a 20 year old American kid with aspirations in international commerce.

If not, my buddy who spent a year at Fudan, which single handedly got him a gig at Google, might suggest otherwise.

I agree with trader's point of view. Attending the most prestigious school locally will usually give you more local points than an ivy league school back home.

I went to a prestigious university in the US but nobody in France or China knew the school. However, when I brought up the name of the local school I was attending in France/China, eyebrows raised, there were audible gasps, and I was suddenly treated very differently.

The point is to get local cred and local networks. Usually one easy route to doing so is to have had attended a local (elite) university.

Post: #21

(10-27-2013 08:44 PM)Pyre Wrote:  Cairns, AUS. No ifts and or buts about it.

Cairns is great for a 2 week holiday but study?

Post: #22

(11-10-2013 04:15 AM)trader Wrote:  I think you're missing the point. I studied at the best business school in Bangkok. Does the bschool name have international recognition in New York, Chicago, or San Fran? Of course it doesn't. While my uni was literally the Wharton of Thailand, I wouldn't expect anyone stateside to recognize the name like a 'harvard' or 'stanford', etc...(although my peers were literally of similar caliber academics wise. super sharp.)

What's the Wharton of Thailand? Chula? Mahidol? Not calling you out or anything, just curious.

Post: #23

I studied in China at a c-9 university, even taking the courses in mandarin (international programs couldn't be bigger jokes) everyone assumes (correctly) you spend a few years learning how to plagiarize and cheat.
and even chinese people know that peking has nothing on any ivy (except brown, nobody has heard of brown) or mit (which they all think is an ivy)
there were other benefits of it, yes. really polished my mandarin, but all contacts and networks i built up still could not land me a decent job here because of visa red tape.

Post: #24

(11-10-2013 04:08 PM)clever alias Wrote:  I studied in China at a c-9 university, even taking the courses in mandarin (international programs couldn't be bigger jokes) everyone assumes (correctly) you spend a few years learning how to plagiarize and cheat.
and even chinese people know that peking has nothing on any ivy (except brown, nobody has heard of brown) or mit (which they all think is an ivy)
there were other benefits of it, yes. really polished my mandarin, but all contacts and networks i built up still could not land me a decent job here because of visa red tape.

This is the recent past?

How is your Mandarin?

Post: #25

very recent
also good