Study Abroad Guide-GECS India

 So you think studying abroad might give your career a boost, do you? Well, you’re right. While you’re traveling the world, seeing the sights, you could also be picking up valuable contacts, cultural insights, and language skills that will give you the edge you need in your career — if you choose wisely.  

In an increasingly competitive global job market, it seems obvious: Studying abroad can take your resume from dull to distinguished. What company wouldn’t want a worker with an international perspective, an open mind and fluency in a few languages under his or her belt? But as a university student, it is important to remember that it takes a bit of savvy and a go-getter attitude to truly make your study-abroad experience an asset to employers.

The program of your dreams

Just ask Till Müller. Currently working on his doctorate of jurisprudence at the University of Kiel, Till has been studying international law for six years, one of which he spent in the United States.

Till says he applied to his program, a longstanding partnership between the University of Kiel and Indiana University, with his career in mind. “In studying in the U.S., I hoped to gain valuable insights as to why American scholars usually have a completely different approach to international law compared to European scholars,” he recalls. “IU offers two full paid fellowships for Kiel students every year, and I got lucky.”

It was a bit more than luck that landed Till such a prestigious opportunity. At Indiana, he discovered differences between the German and American approaches to law — an insight that will allow him to better communicate with lawyers and policy makers across the globe. Seeking out just the right program was the key to making Till’s time abroad really count.

In fact, it’s the recipe for success for anyone looking to make their experience the investment of a lifetime. The adage, “It is what you make of it,” applies doubly here, so as you start to plan your time abroad, make sure you have a grip on what factors will give your career a boost.

A recent study by the Rand Corporation / College Placement Council Foundation found that simply studying for a period of time in another country doesn’t automatically make students more qualified for employment.

The study instead found that it takes a longer stay (more than a semester), real immersion (learning the language), and more practical work experience (internships or research) to develop the skills that will up your chances in the job market.

The best study-abroad counselors at universities are singing the same tune. “If a student can present a successful study abroad period on his or her resume, this shows that he or she manages to adapt to different systems,” says Oliver Fuchs, international officer for the Business Department at Fachhochschule Aachen. “Apart from that, it enriches the resume with foreign language skills, which you will only learn by living in the country.”

Business Babel

But which language is best when it comes to getting ahead professionally? What if you studied Sanskrit? No language is superior to any other, obviously, but some might be a tad more useful in today’s international business arena.

The Steinke Institute in Bonn projects the GNPs of countries all over the world for the year 2025 and assesses the value of their respective languages. They predict that by 2025, the top five languages for foreign trade will be English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and German.

Jennifer Goodfellow decided to hone her skills in one of those “Big 5” — German. A student at Edinburgh University, Jennifer decided to pack her bags in 2006 and head to Munich to study. “I think that it’s rarer for people to study German as opposed to French or Spanish, but I think it’s a more useful language due to all the major businesses with bases in Germany,” she says.

Jennifer’s approach was spot on as German is exceptionally handy in the current business climate. A powerhouse of international corporations, Germany came in fourth on the Fortune Global 500’s 2007 list as home to 37 Global 500 companies, 11 of them ranked in the top 100. Little wonder Germany is the world’s largest exporter of goods.

Jennifer adds, “Having a second language is always going to be a useful skill and something that employers will look for, especially multi-national companies.” Even better when that language is one of the most in-demand languages of business.

Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi on Tuesday said his ministry will prepare and maintain a register of all Indians studying abroad and streamline campus placements to foreign universities following a spate of attacks on Indian students in Australia.

“I have already discussed the issue of maintaining a register of all students from our country who study abroad. We are working this out and very soon we will be implementing this,” Vayalar Ravi told reporters at the state Congress headquarters here.

“We have also come to know that certain agents who do campus placements for Indian students in foreign universities are also not doing it in the proper way. We will streamline that area also,” he said.

The minister was in the Kerala capital to attend the funeral of noted poet and writer Kamala Das, who passed away in Pune Sunday.

There have been five attacks on Indian students in less than a month in Australia, of which four assaults took place in Melbourne. Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, was stabbed with a screwdriver, Baljinder Singh was robbed and stabbed, Sourabh Sharma, 21, suffered a fractured cheek bone and a broken tooth and Ashish Sood was beaten and hit with a metal object May 30.

In Sydney, hospitality graduate Rajesh Kumar received 30 percent burns after a petrol bomb was hurled through the window of his Harris Park home.

SINGAPORE: Living abroad helps people expand their experiences and also their minds, according to an international study into the link between moving to another country and creativity.

The research, published by the American Psychological Association, consisted of five studies involving students at Paris’ Sorbonne University, at INSEAD, a business school with campuses in France and Singapore and at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in the United States.

Researchers said that although the studies show a strong relationship between living abroad and creativity, they do not prove that living abroad and adapting to a new culture actually cause people to be more creative.

“This research may have something to say about the increasing impact of globalization on the world, a fact that has been hammered home by the recent financial crisis,” said the study’s lead author, William Maddux, assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD.

“Knowing that experiences abroad are critical for creative output makes study abroad programs and job assignments in other countries that much more important, especially for people and companies that put a premium on creativity and innovation.”

In one study, MBA students at the Kellogg School were asked to solve the Duncker candle problem, a classic test of creative insight in which individuals are presented with three objects on a table placed next to a cardboard wall: a candle, a pack of matches and a box of tacks.

The task is to attach the candle to the wall so that the candle burns properly and does not drip wax on the table or the floor and the correct solution involves using the empty box of tacks as a candleholder, and then tack it to the wall.

The solution is considered a measure of creative insight because it involves the ability to see objects as performing different functions from what is typical and the results showed that the longer students had spent living abroad, the more likely they were to come up with the solution.

The findings appear in the May issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

Have you considered studying abroad, but are not sure whether it’s worth your time? If you ask anybody who has studied abroad, he or she will most certainly tell you that it is a life-changing experience and one of the most rewarding things he or she has ever done. Perhaps you’re not certain what benefits you can reap from an extended stay in a foreign country. Here are 10 very excellent reasons why you should take the plunge:

1 . Study abroad will help you develop skills and give you experiences a classroom setting will never provide. Being immersed in an entirely new cultural setting is scary at first, but it’s also exciting. It’s an opportunity to discover new strengths and abilities, conquer new challenges, and solve new problems. You will encounter situations that are wholly unfamiliar to you and will learn to adapt and respond in effective ways.

2 . Study abroad affords you the opportunity to make friends around the world. While abroad, you will meet not only natives to the culture in which you are studying, but also other international students who are as far from home as yourself.

3 . Study abroad helps you to learn about yourself. Students who study abroad return home with new ideas and perspectives about themselves and their own culture. The experience abroad often challenges them to reconsider their own beliefs and values. The experience may perhaps strengthen those values or it may cause students to alter or abandon them and embrace new concepts and perceptions. The encounter with other cultures enables students to see their own culture through new eyes.

4 . Study abroad expands your worldview. In comparison with citizens of most other countries,  Indian students tend to be uninformed about the world beyond the nation’s boundaries. Students who study abroad return home with an informed and much less biased perspective toward other cultures and people.

5 . Study abroad gives you the opportunity to break out of your academic routine. Study abroad is likely to be much unlike what you are used to doing as a student. You may become familiar with an entirely new academic system and you will have the chance to take courses not offered on your home campus. It’s also a great opportunity to break out the monotony of the routine you follow semester after semester.

6 . Study abroad enhances employment opportunities. Through an employer’s seyes, a student who has studied abroad is self-motivated, independent, willing to embrace challenges, and able to cope with diverse problems and situations. Your experience living and studying in a foreign country, negotiating another culture, and acquiring another language will all set you apart from the majority of other job applicants.

7. Study abroad can enhance the value of your degree. While abroad, you can take courses you would never have had the opportunity to take on your home campus. In addition, study abroad gives your language skills such a boost that it is normally quite easy to add a minor in a language or even a second major without having to take many more additional courses after the return to your home campus.

8 . Study abroad is the optimal way to learn a language. There is no better and more effective way to learn a language than to be immersed in a culture that speaks the language you are learning. You’re surrounded by the language on a daily basis and are seeing and hearing it in the proper cultural context. Language learning happens most quickly under these circumstances.

9. Study abroad provides the opportunity to travel. Weekends and academic breaks allow you to venture out and explore your surroundings – both your immediate and more distant surroundings. Since studying abroad often puts you on a completely different continent, you are much closer to places you might otherwise not have had the opportunity to visit. Some more structured study abroad programs even have field trips planned in or around the curriculum.

10 . Study abroad allows you get to know another culture first-hand. Cultural differences are more than just differences in language, food, appearances, and personal habits. A person’s culture reflects very deep perceptions, beliefs, and values that influence his or her way of life and the way that s/he views the world. Students who experience cultural differences personally can come to truly understand where other cultures are coming from.