Colleges and universities should require their students to spend at least one semester studying in a foreign country

The writer of the issue states that spending at least one semester abroad should be compulsory for students in colleges and universities. At first sight, it sounds very fascinating, but from my point of view, it’s too difficult to be done and needs so many drastic measurements before this. In what follows my reasons to reject this statement are discussed and then opposite view would be explained.

I think that the main problem is about expenses. Going abroad requires considerable costs including tuition fee, accommodation, food and commuting. It means that, these requirements should be met initially. In other words, universities should find some resources, such as sponsors and charitable organizations, to help them financially. Another difficulty is about student’s jobs and families. Some students may have job, part or full time, and the others probably are in responsible of their families including parents, grandparents or younger siblings. Such cases can’t leave their own home towns at all.

The last, but not least, is unfamiliarity with country of destination’s language. Actually it may not be a big problem in English language countries, since English is an international language and most educated people can talk all over the world. But in other countries with strange language, it can be a significant obstacle. As a matter of fact, learning new language takes a long time and needs a long term plan to learn and this skill can’t be achieved overnight.

However, some people argue that this is a lucrative strategy. Generally it may be true. In the other words, this can be lead to better communication with other nations as well as understanding their cultures. It seems to me this is an excellent opportunity for students and scientists to share their knowledge and findings effectively. Nevertheless, in spite of all these beneficial results, this plan isn’t feasible in most universities. As far as I’m concerned, this plan should be optional for students. For example in our country, Iran, there is a 6-month period for Ph.D candidate to go abroad. In addition to being optional, our government undertakes half of expenses.

To sum up, this strategy is impractical at the moment and providing prerequisites is the first step to come this plan into action.