- All college and university students would benefit from spending at least one semester studying in a foreign country.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.________________________________________
Does students’ experience in foreign country always contribute to their development in a positive manner? In some sense, one can question the effectiveness of the brief stay in other countries. However, like the given statement’s assertion, I tend to agree that any college student can benefit from the experience, especially in terms of expansion of cultural and intellectual perspectives.
Of course, it is undeniable that the policy to require all students to have experiences in other countries may produce lots of technical problems. To most poor students, the new culture of considering the experience in other countries is one that tantalizes their desires but becomes an abortive dream. Because of the enormous cost to travel and stay in another culture, it may be a good advice but an unachieved dream.
Moreover, some may raise questions about the efficacy of the policy on students’ true intellectual growth. Because one or two years of brief stay in foreign country, at best, means “superficial” understanding the new cultures. Instead of gaining extended and rich understanding about other cultures, which is usually mentioned as the predicted benefit from the policy, most students may fail to experience the profound life order of those countries with the short-period of experiences.
Nevertheless, those technical problems or possible superficiality do not necessarily preclude all the benefits for students out of the experience in foreign country. In terms of the ability to understand and respect cultural difference between countries, which is one of critical assets in our modern globalized world, spending some time in foreign country can provide students with huge life resource. From my personal experience, though it is difficult to generalize, my brief stay in Canada as two-semester exchange student has gave me an opportunity not only to understand the Western culture but also overcome the vague fear and illusion about it. Anyway, as long as expansion of personal sense of “international citizen” is concerned, I think, any student would benefit from experiences in foreign countries.
Along with the cultural benefit, opportunity to stay in other countries is also beneficial to students in terms of their intellectual growth. From a new environment that inevitably has different types of customs and ways of thinking, students can receive a refreshed version of intellectual inspiration. Just as most trips liberate us from a narrow vision and habitual way of thinking, spending a significant time in foreign country will present new life perspectives and real inspirations. This also says that students can benefit from the policy to require them to spend semesters in other countries.
To sum, despite the problem of huge financial burden and the possibility to stop at “superficial” experiences, the benefits such as cultural and/or intellectual assets make it difficult to deny the effectiveness of students’ foreign experiences. Therefore, I strongly agree to the given assertion. If the expected profit is greater than the technical cost, any enterprise is worth being gambled.