Studying Abroad Helps The World by Samuel

Studying Abroad Helps The World by Samuel - March 2016 Scholarship Essay

College students should be required to study abroad. All too often individuals lock themselves away in their own world, living their lives in a 50 or 100 mile radius. They attend college close to home, live their lives in their hometown and experience nothing they do not already know. So much of life can be avoided this way. People who do this will become sheltered and close minded, often times fearful and unaccepting of others that do not come from the same culture as their own. Xenophobia and racism often times stem from a lack of exposure to other cultures, and having required study abroad could combat this in the next generations.
Humans have a natural desire to explore and discover more. This desire has led to the exploration of almost every piece of land on the Earth, and the continued exploration miles deeper into the oceans. If this desire goes unfulfilled, many can leave life feeling incomplete, as though they missed out on something that could have been amazing. There are a variety of reasons as to why people might miss out on the chance to explore the world, but the most encompassing factor is cost. More often than not, studying abroad is expensive. Travelling at all is expensive. However, if studying abroad were required for all college students, more scholarship opportunities and money saving possibilities would arise. If there was sudden drastic increase in the amount of students studying abroad, many governments would love the chance to fatten up their economies with an increase in foreigners, as more students would almost certainly lead to a huge increase in tourism as family and friends come to visit them.
Studying abroad would also greatly increase the global emphasis on education. With the economic benefits of having students study in their country, governments around the world would try to attract as many students as they could. As the governments competed with one another to bring in as many students as possible, a sort of educational arms race would occur. Governments would pour more and more money into education to bring in better professors and build better school buildings as it tried to attract more students, leading to a heightened educational standard around the world. The educational funding would make its way down to the lowest levels of the country’s education, and literacy rates would increase worldwide.
With a mandatory study abroad system in place, the education system worldwide, as well as individual growth, would increase in a noticeable way. The effects of implementing such a system would be felt from the individual, through the school system, to the economic level. A better understanding of cultures would develop, economic growth would be felt and world literacy would increase. Requiring college students to study abroad would have an impact felt by many, for generations to come.