Work or Study? The best way to spend your year abroad

Anyone studying a language here in England, the year abroad is most likely compulsory for you so there’s not much point trying to advertise the fact. However, despite being handed this compulsory holiday and opportunity to travel around the world with little to no responsibilities, a gung-ho approach to the year abroad can be a dangerous one. The most important decision for us to make is not which country we go to or how close the beaches are but is in fact whether we should spend this time studying or working.

I study Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Nottingham and spent the first half of my year studying in Brazil, now finding myself in Murcia, interning at Erasmusu itself, translating and creating content. I say this as I’d like to think that the fact I am experiencing a bit of both this year gives me some sort of authority in the matter.

In the grand schemes of things, the year abroad will be an amazing experience no matter which option you choose. However, what you get out of the year abroad does vary between the two options, whilst your experience as a whole will be rather different too, this article is simply my opinion about what makes each option a valid one.

Studying

Studying abroad is arguably the stress free option, in more ways than one. Your university will have tons of options from you to choose from, partner universities dotted all around Europe whilst even some intercontinental exchanges are available (although remember these won’t be funded by Erasmus). By studying you get a year break from unrelenting exams and lectures, a license to immerse yourself in another culture all with the aim of improving your chosen language, so much so the modules and exams you take don’t even count towards your degree (that’s that case for me anyway).

Pros

• Stress free life: you have lectures, yes, but not going to them is far less of a problem than should you repeatedly do so back home. Sacking every single one off is unadvisable but the truth is the studying part of the study abroad plays second fiddle to the need to improve the language.

• Free time: this goes hand in hand with the fact the student life is a stress free life. Not being tied down to a weekly routine means there are many more opportunities to travel and explore the surrounding cities, or even countries. Not to say you can’t do this on a weekend should you work, but with holidays always being longer for students as well as a less rigours timetable to boot, studying abroad definitely gives you greater freedom to travel.

• More people, more parties: by going to a university, you are obviously going to meet more people. Other international students, as well as natives, making friends shouldn’t be a problem and with the focus on Erasmus and the many Erasmus specific opportunities available, finding things to do and parties to go to won’t be difficult either.

• University facilities: perhaps an underrated benefit, but one that I personally think is important. In Brazil the university had a gym and football pitch that I put to frequent use. Here in Murcia however, despite gyms being a common sight in the city, finding somewhere to play football has been difficult and frustrating, even more so after finding out the university here have their own team.

• Discounts: this is sort of related to the access to facilities as not only can you get in, you do so at a fraction of the price. Your English student ID can be used in some places, so if you do work it won’t always be a problem. However, with the multiplicative savings you can make by being an Erasmus student and student of the city you’re in, it’s safe to say studying abroad will grant more benefits in this regard.

Cons

• Too relaxed: don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not one to complain about being able to sleep in every day and admittedly doing the bare minimum is at times an appealing concept. However, to be brutally honest, there is nothing more daunting than having a year out studying without a care in the world then having to return in September to start your 4th year, your final year, the year you find out whether it’s all been worth it or not… you get the idea. The danger of coming back and being overwhelmed is a very real one, so if you do study, just make sure not to take it too easy.

• Language trap: you may have read my other post about the difficulty of speaking Spanish in Spain, and for those of you who didn’t, I’m going to talk about something similar here. Meeting people from all around the world means there is no guarantee you’ll all speak the same language. What’s more is that although we do a year abroad because we study the language, this is not always the case for others. Making a group of friends from all over the place can lead you to speak English more often than the language you are there to speak. Luckily for me in Brazil, no one spoke English, so in this case going to university and meeting loads of people was a good thing, I was always speaking Portuguese. However, from hearing about my friends’ experiences, it seems defaulting to English to accommodate such an array of different nationalities is often the case. Just be careful, and maybe even slightly ruthless, when finding your group of friends. After all, the aim is to get better at your foreign language, not English.

• Boredom: being an international student your options are limited in terms of choosing what you can study. Furthermore, your university might also place restrictions on what modules you can take, or at least give you a minimum requirement. This is dangerous, well it was for me anyway. Although some of the modules were interesting, there were others that were not so much so. Let’s just say, any motivation to get up early and go to a 3 hour lecture that I neither fully understood nor was interested in became increasingly scarce, and in the end, completely absent.

Working

Now I’ll talk about the advantages, and disadvantages, of doing an internship or working during your year abroad. This section will, however, be slightly shorter, many things are going to cross over and I don’t want to bore you, or insult your intelligence, by over explaining each one to a mind-numbing degree.

Pros

• New experience: the word ‘work’ might not suggest it, but a job gives you just as much a break from your studies as the aforementioned alternative. It provides a completely new experience and environment, rather than just a watered down version of what you’ve been doing the past 2 years.

• Future prospects: although time spent abroad, whether studying or working, would be a valued addition on anyone’s CV, work experience itself is one of the more desired attributes. Surely then, any opportunity to combine the two is an absolute no brainer?

• Learning something new/specialising in an area of interest: with the autonomy that finding a work placement gives you, the possibilities are indeed endless. Your home university will help you and email the odd placement, yes, but there are no restrictions in place stopping you from looking yourself. There are many websites committed to finding placements based on your interests, and whilst some are more helpful than others, the point here is that you can do almost anything you want. Explore a profession you might be interested in in the future, or take a leap of faith and explore something new. Working abroad gives you a wider variety of choice.

• Independence: working abroad, like I’ve said a million times before, is a new experience in which you are very much fending for yourself. Getting a work placement means you are going to have to find an apartment, shared or not, and can’t rely on uni accommodation to usher you through the year. You’ll obviously make friends with your work colleagues but getting to and from your place of work will be very much a solo mission, whilst fitting in things to do around your work schedule is much more difficult than it sounds. Organising, time management, all this CV jargon will very much come in to play and once again, the level of maturity and independence required to make the most of a job placement is much greater than that needed for studying.

• In at the deep end: it sounds like a unnerving prospect, and as such not much of an advantage, but the fact you will be working abroad means speaking English is very unlikely. Whilst your uni friends might want to practise their English with you, the professional work environment might allow the odd sharing of words, but on the whole you’ll be much more exposed, and more intensely so, to the foreign language you have travelled there to practice.

Cons

• 9 to 5: you might not actually have to work 9 to 5 but the sentiment is still there. Working a set amount of hours is obviously going to be more tiring than going to one or two lectures a day, and as a result, fatigue and wanting to rest is understandable. The reason I mention this is it will impact your desire to travel. After a long, yet rewarding week at work, travelling around in the most touristy of fashion might not be the most appealing way to spend your two days off.

• Less people, less parties: I’ve already mentioned this during the pros of studying. I’ve added it here as it is one of the biggest differences. However, if you work in a student city, as I do here in Murcia, fear of missing out on the Erasmus parties is a fairly irrational one. Yes, you will meet less people, that’s just the nature of university, it’s just whether you think you need the university environment to make these friends (or if you want to face having to get up for work completely hungover).

I did say at the beginning of this section I didn’t want to repeat everything (ironic that I’m repeating that very fact) and as such there are only two cons for the work section. You could quite easily include the pros of studying to fill it out slightly more however.

So, work or study?

You may have read all of this and not be any closer to making a decision. You may have read it and know exactly what you’re going to do. The main purpose of this was to give you an idea of what each option gives you and how it can help you improve your language.

When all is said and done, it is entirely up to you. The most important thing to remember is that you are going away to learn the language, so my advice would be to choose the environment where you think you’ll learn the most.

As for me personally, doing a bit of both has been a breath of fresh air. I enjoyed studying in Brazil, more so because of the amount of time I didn’t spend studying. Having to face another 5 months half-heartedly attending lectures about subjects I couldn’t care less about would have been detrimental to my desire to improve my Spanish. By working here in Murcia, not only do I get valuable work experience in an area I am interested in in the future, but it also offers something completely different to studying, leaving me ready to get stuck straight back in 4th year, rather than being completely unmotivated or scared about the prospect.

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