How Has A New Culture Shaped Me?

Spending some years in a foreign country abroad can offer you the chance to adopt a new mentality. The time that you’ll invest abroad will transform you but towards which direction? this depends on the particular country. Not each place can give you a similar experience and not every experience can have a similar impact on you. Each country has a completely different story to narrate and every one among them has the capability to form a replacement self of yours who would that be? It depends on the values, the traditions, the history, the political and financial situation and plenty of a lot of factors that have shaped the country and will also shape you.

• What’s new, what’s old?

To take it a bit further, more people that go for their studies abroad are pretty young people and thus are very, subconsciously, open to new influences that might not be only new, but they might be the first ever influence on a specific topic. To give you an example, a 19-year-old that goes abroad for his studies maybe hasn't got the opportunity to shape an opinion about the local and international political scene yet, or a 25-year-old has never seriously thought about religion.

• Show me your best friend or any other relation and I’ll tell you who you are

In your new country, you´ll make new friends. Where do those friends come from? What would be their background? Will you meet the same people if you study in a US private university and the same if you study in a public institution in the Czech Republic? Then, those people maybe become friends for life, you might travel with them, you might get to know their families and visit their countries but what you´ll definitely do is get familiar with their cultures.

• Career doesn´t come last

Highly organized or slightly chaotic? Creative or somehow dry? Inspiring or leading? Do the locals follow the Bachelor, Master, first internship, first job, second job pattern? Or they prefer to go travelling, take a gap year, and go back to the university when they already have two kids? The country's mentality will influence your own way of thinking even though you might need a lot of time to realize that.

• You are the one to shape your future

So, can you rethink the question now? Is study abroad about your studies? Of course, it is, as this is where it'll all start. But don't get stuck to that. When you do your academic program search, take into account all the different aspects that won't offer you just a degree, but a life, an attitude, a mentality, a culture, and a life!