Study Abroad

    Study Abroad

    Share this
    Do you have a question?

    Change your life in a single semester! Studying abroad is the quickest and most effective way to build cross-cultural skills and expand your personal and professional horizons. Immerse yourself in another culture and double the value of your experience by adding a career-boosting component during or after your study term. Extend your stay, network with professionals in your field, volunteer, intern or travel. The world is yours – take it!

    What You Should Know First
    All You Need To Know About Studying Abroad
    Find Study Abroad Resources Now
    Previous Pause Next
    1 of 101
    “
    Definition of Global Competence: "Having an open mind while actively seeking to understand cultural norms and expectations of others, and leveraging this gained knowledge to interact, communicate and work effectively in diverse environments."”
    William D. Hunter, intercultural expert
    “
    People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home. ”
    Dagobert D. Runes, philosopher, writer
    “
    Travel teaches toleration. ”
    Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister
    “
    One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. ”
    Henry Miller, writer, painter
    “
    Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.”
    Seneca, philosopher
    “
    Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe”
    Anatole France, writer
    “
    When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”
    Clifton Fadiman, writer, radio & tv host
    “
    The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
    St. Augustine, philosopher
    “
    We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. ”
    Hilaire Belloc, writer, historian
    “
    I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. ”
    Hilaire Belloc, writer, historian
    “
    When you're traveling, you are what you are… No yesterdays on the road.”
    William Least Heat Moon, travel writer
    “
    I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.”
    Lillian Smith , writer, social critic
    “
    Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. ”
    Miriam Beard, writer
    “
    I love to travel, but hate to arrive. ”
    Albert Einstein, physicist
    “
    Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”
    Miriam Beard, writer
    “
    Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
    Ralph Waldo Emerson , essayist, poet
    “
    Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going. ”
    Paul Theroux, travel writer
    “
    I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
    Douglas Adams, writer
    “
    We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own. ”
    Maria Mitchell, astronomer
    “
    He who would travel happily must travel light.”
    Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aviator, writer
    “
    All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
    Martin Buber, philosopher
    “
    Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. ”
    Aldous Huxley, writer
    “
    A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.”
    John Steinbeck, writer
    “
    Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. ”
    Francis Bacon, writer
    “
    The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. ”
    Samuel Johnson, poet, essayist
    “
    To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”
    Robert Louis Stevenson , writer, poet
    “
    Travel is glamourous only in retrospect.”
    Paul Theroux, travel writer
    “
    The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it. ”
    Lord Chesterfield, statesman
    “
    I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine. ”
    Caskie Stinnett, writer, editor
    “
    The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.”
    Gilbert K. Chesterton, journalist, essayist
    “
    The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”
    Rudyard Kipling, writer, poet
    “
    A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ”
    Lao Tzu, philosopher
    “
    For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move. ”
    Robert Louis Stevenson , writer, poet
    “
    People don't take trips -- trips take people. ”
    John Steinbeck, writer
    “
    The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them.”
    Amelia E. Barr, writer
    “
    Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey. ”
    Pat Conroy, writer
    “
    Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. ”
    Maya Angelou , writer, poet
    “
    We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”
    Jawaharlal Nehru, politician
    “
    Half the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness.”
    Ray Bradbury, writer
    “
    The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it -- basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them. ”
    Charles Bukowski, writer, poet
    “
    If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.”
    Mario Andretti, racing driver
    “
    Is anything sadder than a train/That leaves when it's supposed to/That has only one voice/Only one route?”
    Primo Levi, chemist, writer
    “
    Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”
    Kurt Vonnegut, writer
    “
    Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. ”
    Admiral Richard E. Byrd, explorer
    “
    The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”
    Henry David Thoreau, writer, naturalist
    “
    I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it. ”
    Rosalia de Castro, poet
    “
    I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. ”
    Mark Twain, writer
    “
    Not all those who wander are lost. ”
    J.R.R. Tolkien, writer, professor
    “
    I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. ”
    David Rockefeller, philanthropist
    “
    For so many centuries, the exchange of gifts has held us together. It has made it possible to bridge the abyss where language struggles. ”
    Barry Lopez, writer
    “
    Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”
    Jack Kerouac, writer, poet
    “
    Two roads diverged in a wood and I -- I took the one less traveled by.”
    Robert Frost, poet
    “
    All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.”
    Samuel Johnson, poet, essayist
    “
    Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
    Mark Twain, writer
    “
    Too often… I would hear men boast only of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.”
    Louis L'Amour, writer
    “
    ...I never write when I'm traveling, because travel is a situation where I can learn more by looking and listening than by working. ”
    Thomas Perry, writer
    “
    A wise traveler never despises his own country. ”
    Carlo Goldoni, playwright
    “
    There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it. ”
    Charles Dudley Warner, writer
    “
    I am convinced that to live is to travel towards the world's end. ”
    Ella Maillart, adventurer
    “
    To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. ”
    Freya Stark, explorer, travel writer
    “
    One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.”
    Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician, philosopher
    “
    Life for two weeks on the mountaintops would show up many things about life during the other fifty weeks down below. ”
    Benton Mackaye, conservationist
    “
    A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
    Lao Tzu, philosopher
    “
    Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
    Matsuo Basho, poet
    “
    I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.”
    Susan Sontag, essayist, activist
    “
    It is not down on any map; true places never are. ”
    Herman Melville, writer, poet
    “
    Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ”
    Mark Twain, writer
    “
    Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places. ”
    Italo Calvino, writer
    “
    A map is not the territory.”
    Alfred Korzybski, philosopher, scientist
    “
    Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. ”
    Henry David Thoreau, writer, naturalist
    “
    The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it. ”
    Rudyard Kipling, Author
    “
    No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”
    Alan Watts, writer, philosopher
    “
    When you are everywhere, you are nowhere. When you are somewhere, you are everywhere. ”
    Rumi, poet
    “
    He who does not travel does not know the value of men. ”
    Moorish proverb
    “
    The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. ”
    Mark Jenkins, artist
    “
    As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.”
    Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist
    “
    People who do not travel cannot have a global view, all they see is what's in front of them. Those people cannot accept new things because all they know is where they live. ”
    Martin Yan, chef
    “
    To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”
    Bill Bryson, writer
    “
    To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
    Aldous Huxley, writer
    “
    It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. ”
    Sir Edmund Hillary, explorer
    “
    The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in having new eyes. ”
    Marcel Proust, writer
    “
    … before the traveler sees the ocean, he feels a stirring in his blood. ”
    Jorge Luis Borges, writer, poet
    “
    We start going downhill when we stop taking risks.”
    Laird Hamilton, surfer
    “
    Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter. ”
    John Muir, writer, naturalist
    “
    A traveler without observation is a bird without wings. ”
    Moslih Eddin Saadi, poet
    “
    All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it. ”
    Samuel Johnson , poet, essayist
    “
    No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”
    Lin Yutang, writer, inventor
    “
    Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person. ”
    Yvon Chouinard, rock climber
    “
    Don't tell me how educated you are; tell me how much you have traveled.”
    Mohammed
    “
    ...the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time. ”
    Paul Fussell , historian
    “
    We must travel in the direction of our fear. ”
    John Berryman, poet
    “
    Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”
    Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister
    “
    There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only who is foreign.”
    Robert Louis Stevenson , writer, poet
    “
    A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.”
    Tim Cahill, travel writer
    “
    The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. ”
    Gilbert K. Chesterton, journalist, essayist
    “
    You lose sight of things… and when you travel, everything balances out. ”
    Daranna Gidel , writer
    “
    To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change. ”
    Charles Horton Cooley, sociologist
    “
    …nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes common ground, and a common bond, and we cease to be alone. ”
    Wendell Berry , academic, critic
    “
    The journey, not the arrival, matters. ”
    T.S. Eliot, poet
    “
    The more I traveled, the more I realized that fear makes stranger of people who should be friends. ”
    Shirley MacLaine, actress
    “
    If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home. ”
    James Michener, writer
    Study Stories From Abroad
    Kimberly
    Studied in the UK
    SUNY: University at Albany
    Her thoughts on Cultural Differences
    “
    Americans are loud! Even at the pubs and clubs in London I felt like we were being the loudest ones! ”
    Read more on Kimberly's experience »

    Pages

    In a Rush? Read These Articles First
    These carefully chosen articles will lead you to our most important go abroad strategies!
    View Essential Articles
    Discover the Career Value of Going Abroad
    Get the facts! See surveys and stats linking your experiences abroad to future career success.
    Discover the value!
    Sample Application Documents: See How Others Did It!
    Get inspired by actual documents that real students used to apply for internships, volunteer positions and other go abroad experiences.
    See Sample Application Documents
    The World Online
    Want to stay in touch with the world? Check out these top (and sometime quirky) links!
    See the top links now!
    Quick Guides! Our Most Popular Go Abroad Topics
    View, print or share our easy-to-use guides available in English, French and Spanish.
    View Quick Guides
    Do You Have Enough International Experience?
    Have you maximized your international experience? Are you ready for the international job search? Find out!
    Take the Quiz!
    What's Your International IQ?
    How much do you really know about living and working abroad? Take this quiz to find out!
    Take the Quiz!
    Are You Prepared for the International Job Search?
    How much do you know about international jobs in your field? Get ready for a targeted job search!
    Take the Quiz!
    Quizzes: Your Master Scorecard
    Check your scores for all quiz categories: international skills, experience & the job search.
    View Master Scorecard
    Career-Boosting Strategies for International Students Studying in North America
    What does it take for an international student to succeed in North America? We’ve got tips to help you thrive!
    See the strategies now!
    Earn $30 Gift Card & Submit Your Story From Abroad
    Been abroad? Want to share your story? Submit your Q&A today to see your experience online!
    How to submit a story!
    Self-Evaluations: Think Analytically About Going Abroad
    Keep track of your evolving international skill set before, during and after your international experience. Be ready to apply for jobs in the global economy.
    Start your self-evaluation!
    Frequently Asked Questions
    Find answers to all your questions about MyWorldAbroad by diving into our Frequently Asked Questions section.
    Read the FAQ
    Your International Resume & LinkedIn
    Write your international resume first, and then create that all-important LinkedIn profile.
    Create an international resume
    Top Tips on Going Abroad & Your Career
    Scan our top tips in 40 go abroad subject areas: international skills, getting experience, finding work, and the professions.
    Scan Top Tips
    International Skills: Be More Than Just a Tourist!
    International people have a unique skill set. Learn the terminology and get professional about describing your time abroad.
    Discover your international skills
    100+ Career-boosting Strategies While Abroad
    Discover enterprising, innovative ideas for how to demonstrate your international skills to future employers.
    Maximize your career value abroad