What do you expect when you travel abroad? You will expect different experiences from your culture. Of course, you can feel difference, but if you really want to experience different culture, you have to stay there. Otherwise you will not understand the culture in depth. Another advantage of studying abroad is that you can experience many interesting things. For example, there are different religions in different countries. Mostly, East Asian countries are Buddhism, Middle Asian is Islam, and Christianity is the one of the biggest religions in the world. There are many unique or mixed religions all over the world. If students go to these certain places, they will experience different religious and traditional events. It is also very important to understand other cultures and people. They might feel weird, strange, or even sad, and annoyed, but these feelings help their thoughts wide and flexible because there is no right or wrong culture.
My friend, Satoko Kogure, talked about her opinions of studying abroad. “I’m enjoying studying abroad in the US. I met a lot of people, and I could get different opinions and thoughts from them. I sometimes feel tired of this society and culture, but many people encourage me. What makes me really happy is that people try to understand me and they are interested in my culture. I like talking about cultures with people who have different cultures” (Kogure). She appeals to her emotions and characters. She mentions what she got and felt something warm from this country and people. In addition, she said that she was discriminated by American students at university. However, people who discriminated her recovered her. They had not considered her situation when they understood what foreign people feel about staying other countries. Finally, she appealed that, “What we have to do when we communicate with foreigners is not to be ethnocentrism. Everyone is also different even if they are from same country. Thus, we cannot say that this ethnic group is right and others are wrong” (Kogure). There are no bad things to know other cultures.
The third advantage is to study much harder. Local students can understand what the teacher talks about during the class, whereas international students have a difficulty of following classes because of the gap of language, so we spend much more time for studying than students who are native speakers. Moreover, international students pay tuition twice as local students pay. It helps us study harder. Therefore, we have to study hard to get good scores and not to waste money. Actually, many foreign students get good grades and scholarships. Moreover, if we do not have a strong will about study, we cannot gain anything from this experience, and even we cannot live in another country. Hence, we are able to have confidence to try something new when we study harder and harder.
On the other hand, however, students who want to study abroad should not forget that they would also experience sad, hard, and bad things. One of the disadvantages is students are always facing difficulty of language. In classes, students sometimes do not know what the teachers talk about, they do not know what to do, and they miss very important information. Besides, they hesitate to ask what the other students are doing. Because of that, people seem to think that international students cannot speak the language at all so that people sometimes misunderstand or even ignore them. Actually, most international students learn the languages before studying abroad, but the native speakers’ speaking speed is totally different from the speed that foreign students learn in their own countries. Moreover, every language has difficult pronunciations. Language teachers can understand what foreigners say because the teachers have already gotten used to listen to foreigners’ speaking. But it is a little bit hard for general people to understand it. Thus, foreign students are disappointed to their language skills.
It is very interesting to know other cultures, but it is hard to live in another culture. We do feel different and uncomfortable living in different countries. There is a proverb, which is “When in Rome do as the Romans do”. This is true. If you behave as if you were in your country, you will be scorned because what you do might be bad manner or taboo in the country. But we cannot imitate everything local people do, and we sometimes cannot respect what they do. These differences make students annoy and frustrate. In addition, international students are sometimes discriminated because of their race and ethnic groups. Especially, discrimination against Arab people became severe after September 11th 2001. This is an article, which titled, “So, where are you from”, written by Kristina Lane. This is about the situation of Middle East university students studying in United States of America after the accident happened. Actually, they are in the very difficult situation. They are dealt with in the same way as suspects. Many Arab students were arrested or detained as suspects of the terrorism just because they are from Arabic countries (Lane 5). Even if they were born in the US, and have US citizenships, they are still discriminated because of their race. Unfortunately, my Indian friend was attacked by Americans. We do not know why it happened, but he said that it was because of his race. The author mentions that, “I view it as a clear message that this country does not want Arab students to be in the country” (Lane 2). She appeals emotions, which is what Arab students feel now, and how some Americans feel to them.
If you had a serious problem in another country, who would you ask to help? You would ask to people who are from same country. You could tell them exactly and they could understand why you are worried. You would better to find someone whom you can trust in another country. However, it is not good to be with someone who is from same country all the time. Once international students find someone who is from same country, they seem to be together anytime. When they feel homesick, they can encourage each other, and it is comfortable to be the people. However, as a result, they tend to restrict ourselves into the small group, and lose the chance to know the more diverse community. It does not make sense because we came to study another language and make many friends who are native speakers. This is just waste of money.
In these advantages and disadvantages, there are similarities. In the case of language, if students try speaking a language to people who are the native speakers, they will improve their language skills. However, if they stick to only same ethnic group, of course, to study abroad does not mean anything. It depends on person’s will whether studying abroad become their benefits or not. As the same as language, what they experience and how they take things will decide worth of studying abroad. Good experiences make them confident, and they will think that studying abroad is worth doing. On the other hand, even if they experience bad things, they will learn something from the experiences, and these episodes will help them think wide and flexible. Either this experience becomes advantage or disadvantage depends on students’ will and endeavor. Nobody can help them, but everyone can encourage them if they try hard.
