International Education

Study Abroad: Underpin your international career

If a friend tells you about her trip abroad, the first word that comes to our mind is “Wow”! There’s something about travelling abroad that gets us all excited. The opportunity to interact with people from a different culture and the excitement of learning something new makes international travel seem life-altering. In two decades of career counselling, I find the “opportunity to travel abroad” still top-most amongst most student’s career aspirations. In any career profile, travelling abroad very often implies a rich exotic lifestyle and an adventure.

Studying in a country other than your own has always been perceived to be a relatively easy method to create grounds for a career that will have an international flavour. Once you ‘study abroad’, as it is commonly known, you could potentially work overseas thus immersing yourself in a truly international world and become a global citizen.

However, one of the biggest advantages of studying abroad, in my experience, is that it forces you out of that infamous “comfort zone”. To live in a culture that has different cultural references, jokes, food, etc., encourages you to look at the world differently. Looking at the world through a different lens altogether can transform your personal worldview and make you ready for an international workplace. For instance, a typical classroom in an international university will have students from all over the world so when you do group assignments you are exposed to different perspectives and diverse ways of addressing a problem.

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Shivani Manchanda, a post-graduate in Counselling from the USA, is a warm and vibrant counsellor. Her expertise lies in counselling students on career development, stress prevention and international education. She is an enthusiastic speaker with over two decades of experience.

Shivani Manchanda

Shivani Manchanda, a post-graduate in Counselling from the USA, is a warm and vibrant counsellor. Her expertise lies in counselling students on career development, stress prevention and international education. She is an enthusiastic speaker with over two decades of experience.