5 benefits of studying a year abroad
The time when a child leaves home is difficult for children and parents. However, leaving to study a year abroad is a good reason for parents to encourage their children to leave. The firm Medialuna, together with 16 Spanish companies, promoters of courses abroad, have launched a communication campaign that tries to raise awareness of the benefits of studying abroad.
5 benefits of your child studying abroad
Despite the difficulties or fears of leaving home, currently, the number of young people studying abroad is increasing. The latest data from 2010 indicated that approximately 100,000 Spaniards took a course or studied a language outside of Spain, a reality that has been increasing year after year and has been accelerated by the difficulty of many young people to find work.
However, a trend that has changed is that children decide on aspects such as destination or the characteristics of the studies they want to study abroad. Now, it is the parents who, since the beginning of the crisis, have taken the initiative. What is clear is that after the experience, both agree that there are a number of benefits that are worth taking the initiative to leave out:
1. An opportunity to mature. Going away from home, in this case to study abroad, will be the key to gain independence and self-confidence. Although fear and insecurity are the protagonists, especially at the beginning, not being able to use the family or the friends of always, it implies that your son develops his own initiative. It is a good way to learn to stand on your own in an environment that is not yours and acquire a series of responsibilities.
2. Know a new educational system. Studying at a foreign school or university will also mean knowing another educational system, different from what you know so far. Apart from the benefit of studying in another language, knowing another center will serve to analyze, with greater judgment, the advantages and disadvantages of different educational systems.
3. Make new friends. Leaving the circle of regular friends is sometimes a beneficial practice. Knowing more people, their opinions and customs or discussing discovering new points of view is always a healthy exercise that will help your child have broader views and grow in tolerance.
4. A broader look. Learning the customs and culture of another country is a necessary experience. Not only will you grow your child as a person, but also teach you how to deal with very different people. Also, it will be a good way to expand knowledge and have different perspectives of the same thing, something that later, surely, will make you a more tolerant and just person.
5. Improve job opportunities. Currently, languages are one of the essential requirements that companies ask when hiring someone. The experience of a year abroad and the consequent use of a language will be another point in your child's curriculum, which will also demonstrate a certain capacity for initiative, another aspect highly valued by companies when they analyze applicants. a job.
Campaign 'Son, it is best to leave home'
The objective of this campaign is to publicize the Benefits which means for the children to complete a full academic year abroad. For that, they have recorded several videos in which, through the voice of different mothers, they try to convey the benefits of the children leaving to study a year away from home.
So, some of the mothers, of boys between 11 and 17 years old, who participate in this campaign, explain why they sent their children to study outside of Spain and point out some benefits of this experience: the learning of a new language, the maturity, the autonomy or the affection and tenderness with which their children now were expressed, were some of these aspects in favor.
In this sense, many mothers agreed that the experience of studying abroad means that children value more everything what they did not notice before: from their mother's food to help with domestic chores. A reality that was also reflected in the affection with which the children expressed themselves, after months away from home in which, little by little, many things start to be missed.
On the other hand, just as the children have had a series of difficulties that have made them improve in many aspects, the mothers have also passed a period of fears and uncertainties: the fear that his son will face an unknown environment, the new companies, or the tasks that he will now have to do alone, are some of the most repeated concerns.
Patricia Núñez de Arenas
