The Student Room Group

Scared about year abroad

Hi, I'm doing a degree in Spanish requiring me to spend a year abroad. On the surface this sounds like an exciting opportunity but I'm now beginning to worry about it especially finding your own accomodation, what are you supposed to do if you can't find any, sleep on the streets? Also who can you contact if you have problems out there? It sounds to me like you're left to do everything yourself, so I was just wondering if anyone else was having these kind of doubts?

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Reply 1
:confused:

Erm, no they will have contacts with the university or placement out there and will contact you to know how you are doing. Accomodation is usually sorted out before you go - the likelihood is, you'll be staying with fellow students in Spain.

Besides if something major does go wrong, there is always the British consulate. But I doubt you will get into serious trouble.

Your uni should prep you for this well in advance. Mate of mine, is doing a term in China and had to go to numerous lectures, talks and social meetings before he went, so he knew what to expect.

Anyway, Spain is about 1000 miles from home or an hours plane ride.

Tokyo on the other hand is about 10,000 miles and a 12 hour flight. :cool: :wink:

So put into perspective about how others have to fare. :smile:
Reply 2
Year abroad = best thing ever. Don't worry about it. Everything works out in the end.
I'm terrified as well, but all the fourth years I've spoken to about it said it was amazing and they didn't want to come home, even though they were also scared to begin with. You should be going to lots of talks and meetings about it in your second year at uni to prepare you as well as possible. I've heard the department tries to keep in touch with you while you're there to make sure you're doing OK, and if you study at a uni, there'd probably be someone there you could talk to if you had any problems. We're all in the same boat anyway.
Reply 4
Once you get over the intial few weeks of home sickness and settling in, you will never want to go back home. Trust me.
Reply 5
gaijin
Once you get over the intial few weeks of home sickness and settling in, you will never want to go back home. Trust me.

Definitely.
Reply 6
I was TERRIFIED before going on my year abroad - I'd always been really shy about speaking in Spanish classes and honestly didn't know how I'd cope! But I honestly didn't have a single lonely day from the first to the last, and I'm still trying to get over leaving 4 months on... I've already been back to the city where I spent the year (Girona, in Catalonia) twice since I moved home in June, and am seriously considering moving there for good after I graduate!

Seriously, I know that not everyone can have such an amazing year abroad, but almost everyone in my year at uni has come back having had a positive experience at the very least! I did Erasmus and was well looked-after by my host uni. They offered us halls accommodation well in advance, and arranged loads of introductory stuff like city tours, trips and parties where I met all the other foreign students, so I had a ready-made bunch of mates to hang around with. I'd really recommend Erasmus in general - the actual studying is a bit of a doss, you make so many friends from different places and have a great time partying basically - and you get given money to fund it all! Hehe :wink:

One tip if you're nervous about going away alone is to try to make friends with current Erasmus students if there are any at your uni. I met a girl from Girona who was doing her year abroad at my uni the year before I went there, and she was such a huge help to me when I first arrived!

Anyway sorry for the mega post but I can't even explain how scared I was before I went away, and how much an impact my year abroad has had on me!
Try to relax and things will all fall into place somehow :wink: Good luck!

Lauren xxx
Reply 7
thankyou for your words of encouragement, it sounds like you had an amazing year and I can only hope mine is anything like that when it comes around :smile: sounds like an erasmus uni placement is a good idea for shy unconfident people such as myself.
Reply 8
gaijin
Once you get over the intial few weeks of home sickness and settling in, you will never want to go back home. Trust me.

Or.....you will! Like me :biggrin: Not long now.....
so becca do you have to go on to other countries after france as part of your year abroad?xx
I suppose I was a worst case scenario since my uni doesn't give a **** about its students, and we were left to fend for ourselves. I arrived in Granada, Spain alone and with nowhere to live. I stayed in a hostel and went flat hunting - there were literally notices pinned up all over the place advertising flats. I was spoiled for choice. I ended up living with 4 lovely Spanish girls and had an amazing year! It's really nothing to worry about, it seems stressful at first, but after a week or two it felt like home for me. I actually feel homesick FOR Spain, now and am planning a trip over to see my friends there, and go out to all the places I went to. It was brilliant!
I don't want to worry the OP any further, I just want to share my experience on the year abroad thing. I'm currently a third year student of Spanish and should technically be on my year abroad right now. However, after going to Spain in September to be a teaching assistant, I came home after 10 days having not been able to find accommodation and not being able to afford living in the hostal I was in for much longer (as well as there being no guarantee of a room there for the foreseeable future). I've been home for two months now, and as I have to spend at least 8 months abroad if I want to finish my degree I'm going back at the end of January to spend five months as an erasmus student and then I have to find a work placement for the summer months. I'm incredibly worried about going back fearing that the same thing will happen again and I since I've been back I haven't been able to think about anything else. I feel as though I've let myself down and if I don't succeed this time i just don't know what I'll do. My academic life is the only part of my life that I feel has run smoothly until this happened (good GCSE's, good a-levels and then straight to uni where I got good grades in 1st and 2nd year), but now I feel completely useless.
Reply 12
xx Rebecca
so becca do you have to go on to other countries after france as part of your year abroad?xx

Yep, off to Italy in February. Hoping for it to be more lively than Limoges where I am now. (Leaving on Friday, yipeee!!! :biggrin: )
Becca
Yep, off to Italy in February. Hoping for it to be more lively than Limoges where I am now. (Leaving on Friday, yipeee!!! :biggrin: )


wherebouts you going in italy? are you going to uni there? how long for? hope you have a better time there!
my ex has gone on his year abroad now. he was quiote lazy and didn't send off his accomadation form on time so to cut a long story short he found his own accomodation. he stayed in a hostel a couple nite then a friends house (that he met on his immersion course) and managed to find a flat relavitely easy thru an estate agent there. another friend of ours in the same city also found private accom really easy by answering the random adverts posted up around the city.
if it's a student town ure going to, then there will be load of private accomadation around i think.
if u have problems on ure course, either talk to the people at the uni abroad, or u have ure erasmus co-ordinator at home.

xxxx
Reply 15
In Japan foreign students studying in a Japanese uni get a government grant.

Soaplands here I come. :laugh:
Reply 16
The Swedish guys doing erasmus are apparently getting a grant of 800€ a month from their government, on top of the Erasmus grant. Lucky gits.
The Swedish guys doing erasmus are apparently getting a grant of 800€ a month from their government, on top of the Erasmus grant. Lucky gits.


That makes me so angry! We only got an 800 euro Erasmus grant for the YEAR! And that was still the biggest grant I've ever got in my life. I want to be Swedish! :biggrin:
Reply 18
Really? I got £1800 at the start of the year, and potentially more on completion. Are you Irish or British? Because the Irish guys I know here are getting considerably less than me.
WHAT?? is that how much every1 from britain gets for their erasmus grant??