If you’ve decided that you plan to pursue a semester abroad, it’s time for the next most important decision: where will you go? If you’re still deciding on if an exchange semester might be right for you, check out my blog post here. Truly, you can’t go wrong and no matter where you end up, you’ll have an awesome time! With that said, there are some ways to optimize for the best possible experience that aligns with what you’re looking for in a semester abroad.
Step 1: Choosing a continent
The first step in narrowing down where to go on exchange is starting with a broad location parameter. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll stick to Australia, Europe, and Asia – although other great options also exist, these are definitely the most popular for students coming from Canada and the US.
Of these 3 options, Australia is the farthest, the term dates are usually quite different making coordinating internships tricky, and the least amount of Queen’s students pick Australia. If you’re in a position where you have flexibility with your summer plans and are seeking to take the path less traveled this can be a really great option. Australia’s culture is quite similar to that of North America, the currency conversion from CAD to AUD is close to 1:1, and there’s lots of lovely nature and animals. If you’re thinking about Australia, definitely reach out to an upper year to ask how they navigated the term dates as I’ve heard stories about people needing to fly back to write exams during the middle of their internships.
Europe is typically the most popular choice (especially for students coming from Queen’s) and it’s for good reason. To start, the academic rigour is perceived as less intense than schools in Asia and some schools are even less intense than your home university (this is specific to the university). Secondly, travelling within Europe is accessible and relatively in-expensive due to the Schengen area and ULCC’s. The Schengen area is a zone of 29 countries in Europe that don’t require border controls meaning additional visas or border checks are typically not needed. Transportation within Europe is quite inexpensive due to the presence of Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCC), there is intense competition from Ryanair, Wizz Air, Easy Jet, etc. which makes many of the prices very affordable. If you book flights early enough, it’s common to have round trip flights costing under $100 CAD (and lower). Finally, Europe is great given its popularity amongst your existing friends. Although going on a semester abroad is an awesome way to make new friends, it’s also nice to have the option to visit and travel with your existing friends. It’s rare that you’ll have so many people to stay with across countries at a period in your life and the free accommodation is definitely a plus!
Asia is also a popular choice given the warm climate and unique cultural experiences. In Australia and Europe, the average culture shock / adjustment tends to be easier for students coming from North America where that typically isn’t the case in Asian countries. The unique experience of living in Asia can be super valuable, the quality of education also tends to be elevated compared to other regions. Students often note that popular destinations like Singapore can be very hot / humid. Singapore in particular is quite small and can be easily explored very quickly. Although actually getting to Asia tends to be more expensive, cost of living is much lower. Also note, that travel between countries will be more expensive than Europe (anticipate flight prices of ~$200).
In my case, I eliminated going to Australia based on constraints related to a 16-week internship starting in May. Initially, I had planned to select schools in Singapore but after chatting with upper years they really encouraged me to go to Europe as many Queen’s students travel throughout Asia as a graduation trip. I particularly liked the ease of travelling throughout Europe while studying, and I also liked that this would be a popular choice amongst my friends, meaning that for once in my life I could visit dozens of cities in Europe without paying for accommodation. Now that I’ve gone on exchange and am planning my grad trip, I’m super glad to have visited Europe during off-peak season times (outside of summer) during my study abroad.
Step 2: Understanding Your Criteria to Shortlist Countries
Once you have established the continent that you want to go to, I recommend creating a list of criteria so that you can shortlist schools. Many upper year students will be familiar with lots of schools from their own process of picking an exchange school and through visiting/communicating with their friends. I always recommend reaching out to students who have gone to the schools you’re considering to get the best perspective on what they liked and what they didn’t like.
For step 2, leveraging an LLM like ChatGPT will be your best bet! Start by thinking about what’s important to you – for me, this includes warm temperature, ease of travel/location centrality, reasonable cost of living, relaxing school environment, and term dates. Please note, this criteria is not the official criteria you should use when justifying your choices to your university, this is for personal decision making purposes! Once I established what I wanted out of an exchange school, I started by asking ChatGPT which countries in Europe had relatively warm weather from January – April. The outcome was a list of about 10 countries, with only 3 of these countries having partner schools with Queen’s University. If the shortlist is too lengthy, continue to apply decision making criteria in the order of most to least important.
After shortlisting 3 countries based on weather, I was left with Spain, Portugal and France (South). I placed several schools from all these countries on my list, but when leveraging other criteria the South of France worked best for me given the term dates were most flexible with my intended internship timing, and having done French Immersion in school I was most excited about going to France.
Step 3: Researching the School’s on your Shortlist
The final step of choosing where to go on exchange is to explore the partner schools that operate exchange programs in your desired country. Most popular countries have 2-3+ schools, to narrow them down, continue applying your initial criteria from step 2 and leverage insights from students who went in the past. Looking at ECAS reviews is a great way to decide on which school to go to, and setting up time to connect with students who went to the school you’re thinking about is once again a great option (use the emails associated with the ECAS review!).
Overall, you can’t go wrong with any school, remember this experience is meant for you to make the most of so cancel out the noise of what your friends are doing and think about what you would like best!
If you went through this process and did not get your top choice school, check out my blog post here!