Hello everyone. I am currently a freshman at college and I’m really looking forward to being able to study abroad! Realistically this would probably be in my third year when my schedule will be more open to courses I can choose myself.
Anyhow, I’m wondering what any of you would do if you were in the situation where your parents told you that the only country you were allowed to do study abroad in was Japan. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Japan and I’ve been learning Japanese for quite some time now. However, whenever I talk to my mom about visiting other foreign countries, a shadow of fear crosses her eyes and she starts rambling about how dangerous the environment would be, eg “Europe currently filled with terrorists, etc” My school has a great engineering program that may allow me to go to Peru for the third year and my mom has discouraged it for safety reasons. Should I follow through with my mom’s wish for me to go to Japan for the third year (Which I’m cool with) or how should I convince her that other countries are great too so that when I look at my study abroad options I can see a greater light of hope looking at programs at Morocco, Spain, Taiwan, etc that also interest me.
My point was that if, for example, you wouldn’t be signing up for a program until a year from now, the conversation about where to go would be premature. If that were the case, I’d stop talking about it now and cross the bridge when you actually come to it.
More than a year from now. Lots of time to explore options. That includes the academics, living arrangements, oversight and more.
A friend did a jr year engineering semester in Central America and the work outside classroom, (the local projects and comm service,) was an amazing opportunity. See what yours is about.
Peru in particular is an amazing country. Studying there would be the experience of a lifetime. Parts of it are very westernized (Lima) with some of the best cuisine in the world. But where it really shines from a student’s perspective is the opportunity to explore the country and its wonderful people. Research the Inca Trail, Sacred Valley etc
Information! That’s how you convince her. Find out all you can about the program, where you’ll be staying, resources there, who will be running the program, and anything else you can think of. My DD studying abroad last year as a sophomore. She was in London. I was still concerned when she told be about the plans. However, she laid it out and we were reassured. She had a fabulous time.
On a side note, she was two blocks away from a terrorist attack while she was abroad. However, there a terrorist attack in NYC last week. Another DD is going into the city on Monday. People were attacked at a concert in Las Vegas. We need to stay aware, but we need to live our lives too. Tell her you will be aware.
Before he throws out Japan, if he has invested a lot in learning the language, it would be useful for him to follow through and study there. I’m not sure if OP is talking about an engineering internship and semester of classes is what he plans on doing. My son will be going to Japan in two years for that, classes and internship. That would build on the hard work OP has already done. Does going to Peru mean learning Spanish from scratch?
I could have written @WWC4me 's post. My daughter was also in London near the attacks last spring. Her school offers an archeological dig in Turkey - that’s a no. Travel around certain cities and places even when on a ‘safe’ exchange isn’t allowed. Spring break in parts of Mexico are out.
You can’t convince her that the world is safe, so just pick a little piece of it.
@twoinanddone My son’s girlfriend’s mom has spent a lot of time this summer and fall. We’ve been worried about her due to that lunatic in SK. Safe is relative I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate indicates that there are 125 countries with lower intentional homicide rates than the United States. Now, some of them may be unacceptable to you or your mother for other reasons (e.g. no suitable study abroad universities, heavy political repression, heavy discrimination against your race/ethnicity/religion or other characteristics of yours, dubious statistics in some countries, etc.). But that should still leave plenty of countries that should be considered reasonably safe.
Japan had the 8th lowest rate in that list at 0.31 intentional homicides per 100,000 people. The US had 4.88 intentional homicides per 100,000 people (15.7 times higher than Japan).
“Peru in particular is an amazing country. Studying there would be the experience of a lifetime. Parts of it are very westernized (Lima) with some of the best cuisine in the world. But where it really shines from a student’s perspective is the opportunity to explore the country and its wonderful people. Research the Inca Trail, Sacred Valley etc” ~ tseliot
Tourist type considerations are fine and good, but it sounds like the OP’s parents are paying the bills. So from their perspective, I’ll bet they’re more concerned about things like quality of education.
Would the quality of education be as good in Peru as it would be in Japan?
Is the teaching in Peru done in English or Spanish?
If teaching is in Spanish, does the OP possess college level ability in oral and written Spanish?
Have you already had parents’ weekend? At my Ds school that weekend featured study abroad fairs or sessions where parents could attend and see options and talk to people. There were usually students that had traveled to share their experiences. If that has passed this year (seems like these are usually in fall) be sure to check it out for next year.
0.31 Japan
0.66 Spain
0.82 Taiwan
1.05 Morocco
4.88 United States
7.16 Peru
Regarding terrorist attacks, there were terrorist attacks in Japan in 1994 and 1995 using poison gas (sarin). The more recent one in the Tokyo subway killed 12 and injured 5,000.