Then beggars would ride!
I wish I had more money.
I was looking at the exchange programs that my college offers, and there's a bunch of schools in Europe that teach in English, which is crazy! And the ones in Spain and France are languages I already have a background in, so learning fluency (in theory) wouldn't be as difficult as learning, say, Swedish to go to Jönköping University (although Jönköping is one of the schools that has courses in English. I'd just want to learn the language not to be that foreign jerk who refuses to learn to speak the language of the country you're spending more than a few days in, you know?). These all offer business courses, which is obviously my major, and since IFRS is "International Financial Reporting Standards" and a lot of European countries and Canada follow it, it's not like having a background in international business would hurt me any.
(Fun fact: the US is thought to be unlikely to ever adopt IFRS, even though it makes international trading of stocks much easier for the rest of the world, because the US GAAP ("generally accepted accounting principles") is a rule-based system (as in "you have to do it this way") and IFRS is a principles-based system (as in, you can do it how you'd like as long as it fits these principles - MUST be "relevant" and "faithfully represented"). So, even though IFRS is a "looser" system, the American system opens up the possibility for more fraud, because as they say, "Once there's a rule in place, someone has already found a way to work around it." And unfortunately, the US is a big enough power on the trading markets that it doesn't really have to worry about complying with what their major economic partners are doing. Bastards.)
But I don't think I could afford it, sadly, even though I would absolutely love to do this. Maybe I can talk my mom into giving me a "study in a foreign country" loan on top of the student loan I could get? I mean, one of her regrets is not traveling while young, and I think she would support that.
And how awesome would it be to study in a foreign (but not too foreign) country? Super awesome, that's how awesome.
Maybe I'll talk to her about it. Because now I really want to do this.
Studying abroad is something I always thought about. Or even a volunteer job or going as an au pair for a year. But I'm getting too old and too set in my ways by now ;)
ReplyDeleteIf you do have the opportunity though, I'd say it's an incredible experience.
My sister spent one year in France, doing her final year of High School there. To be fair, she thought it was absolutely awful at the time, because it was difficult to get into the already formed groups. That was all in French though. So she was the only non-French student in her entire class. I suspect in a course taught in English, it would be a completely different story. (She doesn't regret it though, cause her French is fluent! And she's now a French teacher in Sweden ;) )
I was admittedly one of those horrible people who never learned the language when I lived in The Netherlands *lol* I knew Swedish and English, and I learned enough Dutch to get by when asking for help in a store/ordering dinner etc.
Most Dutch people know English quite well though, and when I tried speaking Dutch they'd just hear my accent and speak English anyway. So learning it was really difficult. (Especially since I always worked in an English-speaking environment with people from all over the world. So I didn't come into contact with that much Dutch in a day-to-day life.)
I did spend 7 years there though, and I guess I could understand most of the Dutch when people were talking, or when I was reading. Speaking it myself though... Let's just say my grammar wasn't the best, but at least they seemed to get what I was trying to get at most of the time *lol*
Soeaking of the Netherlands, that's another of the countries that offers entire courses in English!
DeleteI admit, I would largely want to go to a European school rather than Asia/South America for the accents. I love me some European accents, and people seem to know English most places. I could drool over attractive European men speaking to me in accents.
*lol* Yes, accents can be really nice!
ReplyDeleteSome countries are better at English than others I think. The worst ones that I can think of are France and Germany. I suspect it's because their TV and movies are all dubbed to their own language, so they don't hear English as much as the countries that just use subtitles. I think possibly Spain and Italy have dubbed TV as well. Spain may be okay though, a lot of British people seem to move there. :P
In the Netherlands most people seemed to have at least a passable English, and there's also a fairly large expat community, due to many international organisations being based there.
The Scandinavian countries are fairly decent as well. And England of course :D
And to be fair, if you're in an English-language course, there'll be plenty of people around to talk to. And the area around the school will most likely have people who are more used to English. :)
Weather wise, I'd probably say either of the southern countries. But that's because I hate the cold and winter :P
In Canada, we take French from grade 3 (around 8 years old) to grade 8 (around 14). I'm far from fluent, but I do have grounding in the basics so in theory, it wouldn't be too hard to learn. I also took Spanish for three years at a higher level than French was, so I can do baby-talk in it, so again, in theory I could learn to speak it pretty quickly.
DeleteI also took a course in German in uni, but I cannot tell a lie, I only did okay in it.
(All those are "in theory," because who knows, maybe if I'm thrown into it I'll find myself completely unable to learn the language!)
So, let me see. Places in Europe that offer business courses: Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.
My brother and sister are encouraging me to apply, because what is the worst that could happen? But I want to go to all those places! I mean, it's really just so different there, in terms of length of recorded history and culture and architecture. I want to see it all! HOW WOULD I CHOOSE?
Why wouldn't your students loans pay for your foreign education? Or did I misunderstand and your mom is also the source of your student loans? The US government technically paid for me to go and study in China (via student loans, of course).
ReplyDeleteI can get loans to cover the school part (which get paid directly to my school, and not the foreign school) and a part of the housing and travel costs, but most of the travel and housing would be something I would have to cover. Airfare is $1000 if booked now for early September, not counting any additional travel and return fare. That's a lot of money!
DeleteSo I could get a loan, but it would not necessarily be enough to make the trip easy and affordable.