<p>I'm thinking about doing study abroad for a semester but I need some advice. I'm not sure where exactly is the best place to go or what's the best agency to look at. I looked at some universities and agencies that do exchange programs but unfortunately my school isn't a part/member of any exchange network and some of the agencies I went to had programs but only in maybe 2-3 countries to go to, all of which which were either very limiting and of little interest to me. I've looked at other university websites and it bugs me how some of them have more options for engineering students. Is there any advice you could recommend for finding the right program. </p>
<p>Your college doesn’t have a Study Abroad office? Well, that’s not a insurmountable problem since undoubtedly there’s a load of information to be had on the subject at various websites. Check with your Dean of Students to find out if your home school tuition/aid etc. will cover some of your expenses abroad.</p>
<p>Decide first what you want to study during your stay; Mechanical, Chemical, Materials, Electrical etc. Then research schools in your target nations. There are programs in English taught in various countries. One example is the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Delft in Germany, an excellent engineering university, may have courses in English. I don’t know. Be aware that universities in Europe typically have high GPA requirements for visiting international students. </p>
<p>What year of school are you in? When I was a second year I wanted to travel abroad and it just didn’t work out. basically the engineering program has its classes set up so specific that you know what class you are taking in what semester, and you need that one specific class as a prerequisite for the next semester. the earlier in your program the better your chances of traveling abroad. </p>
<p>Also my school told me that they would not pre-approve some of the engineering courses for transfer credits, but other classes like math was so general that it was ok to take abroad. they also told me that any engineering class has to be taught by a professional engineer otherwise they would give me transfer credits. </p>
<p>Another thing to look at is when the semester dates line up. my school went from sept 5 to dec 8, then jan 6 to april 20, and I found some schools had their semesters from sept to jan then feb to may. this made me have to do 2 full semesters instead of 1 (this was for china). also I think anywhere in the south hemisphere had different school semesters than us too. </p>
<p>your best bet would be somewhere else in the USA, Canada, or UK. preferably in your first year of university. and its expensive!!</p>
<p>honestly I think you are better off saving the extra 10 grand you would of spend studying abroad and just going to backpack Europe for your first summer off from university. </p>
<p>That’s why my daughter decided to study abroad the summer after freshman year. I think she would be miserable in the winter there. Summer is the best time for Europe that is. But she also didn’t study engineering, honestly there is no study in study abroad. It’s time to experience other cultures and not study all the time. She studied language and encryption/spy kind of courses.</p>
<p>see, those seem like fun courses. especially taking a language course abroad, you would improve so quickly. </p>
<p>When I asked my school about it they only recommended taking a max of 3 course as apposed to my 5 i regularly take. like i said it didn’t work, I would had to add an extra year to my studies and being an older student i didn’t want to prolong not working.</p>
<p>@echo4300 yeah that sounds a lot like me, my school has their curriculum pretty much set in terms of what class you’ll take when. The only real freedom you have is that every semester there are 1-2 electives which you get to choose from, most of them being core ones, with late junior/senior year being more specialized engineering electives. </p>
<p>I’m currently a sophomore, so it’s still pretty early. The thing is my study abroad office does have a few programs, but there all in very general English-speaking countries like UK and Canada and I personally would rather go somewhere more exotic not just because I think it would be a more unique experience but also because I think it would more fun and I could also possibly learn the language. They said what I could do is to find a program through a study abroad agency and present it to the school, but for me its just been hard trying to find the right one. I actually think Asia or southern Europe would be an amazing place to go, especially China since you mentioned it since I actually have relatives in China and speak the language pretty well. I’m considering to possibly just go over the summer. People have told me though that a semester abroad is much more enriching than a summer’s but as of now I’m not completely positive on what I can do and am still thinking about it.</p>
<p>Mine had a choice of Thailand and a few other countries. But she doesn’t need the credit so there are tons of programs out there.</p>
<p>As an engineering student, the difficult may be ensuring that your courses at the abroad school are accepted in your major, or that you can complete your major without needing the course work from the abroad school (other than for breadth requirements and credit unit counts).</p>
<p>Summer session may be more feasable, since it may be less disruptive to your course scheduling, and it is easier to attend universities in the summer when they have excess capacity.</p>
<p>It s harder for Engineering students because of the rigid course sequence etc. Typically you need to plan far ahead, and it helps to get hints from others who have found good course transfer options. </p>
<p>In DS’s case, he planned ahead and ended up taking mostly electives… though still 4 of 5 techie courses. Still only some of them yielded useful credit. </p>
<p>“honestly there is no study in study abroad” - I’ve heard that a lot for Europe programs. But it sounds like DS did work fairly hard in his courses at NUS (National University of Singapore). Asian engineering students are serious about their studies. NUS worked well because English is the national language, and there lots of cheap travel opportunities. He went on a direct exchange program (we just paid the normal scholarship-assisted tuition). </p>
<p>i agree finding a summer session would be better, unless you are prepared to add another year onto your degree. plus if you go in the summer you can take a language course and asian history or something fun, and it won’t be as intense as taking fluid mechanics. I think china would be a great experience, you should look into summer program over there, I know they offer summer language sessions that run 6-8 weeks long, you can also mix this in with a bit of Chinese cooking, martial arts, or calligraphy. plus its probably cheaper to go to China than to southern Europe. </p>