国外留学的优缺点.pdf

Advantages and Disadvantages of Studying AbroadAdvantages and Disadvantages of Studying Abroad In the US,the number of university students who study abroadincreased dynamically.154,168 American college students studied abroadfrom 2000 to 2001 compared to 48,483 students from 1985 to 1986(Rooney4).The more students study abroad,the more organizations have to workflexible.“The university has tried to track the changing interests ofits students and the increasingly global nature of its curriculum bysetting up programs in countries that did not attract as much interesta generation ago”(Rooney 2).A decade ago,the only destinations ofstudying abroad were in Western Europe,but there are many places forstudents to study abroad all over the world now(Rooney 2).Why students want to study abroad?For the reason,they can experiencemany amazing things.Studying abroad is not only to participate in classesat university but also to stay in different cultures and languages.Toknow other cultures is interesting,because bad manners in a country aresometimes normal things in the other.If you can speak more languages,we can talk to many people.Nowadays,it is very important to communicatewith people who are from other countries because of businesses and tounderstand other cultures.This experience will positively affect onesfuture.Furthermore,ways of thinking and knowledge will be wide andflexible.Therefore,studying abroad has many benefits.However,moststudents who desire to study abroad tend to think that they can experienceonly good things.This thinking relate to pamphlets because they only saygood things.A studying abroad pamphlet says,“Learn a language,broadenyour perspective,explore your identity,challenge yourself,increaseyour self-confidence and decision making skills,re-evaluate yourpriorities,values or goals,and discover a new or family culturalheritage”.If students read this,they will definitely feel like studyingabroad,but they have to know opposite side.Besides,the most importantthing to remember is why they go overseas.The purpose of studying abroadis,of course,to study.Some foreign students die because of accidents or committing suicide.International students experience not only good things but also many badsituations.However,bad things are rarely showed in public.Actually,a Japanese student was killed in Australia last year,but we did not hearany information after a few days of the first news.Students commit suiciderather than die by accidents.We meet with bad experiences because of thegap of cultures and languages,or we just do not suit the country.We cannotpredict until we go to the country and stay.In addition,these badexperiences affect our study.Moreover,the worse situations are,the morewe feel homesick.Consequently,everything makes us frustrated.Peoplewho want to study abroad have to know both good and bad sides.There are mainly three advantages of studying abroad,which are tobe able to learn foreign language,experience fun things,and study muchharder than doing in their own countries.On the other hand,threedisadvantages are predicaments of communicating with people,getting usedto a different culture,and tendency to be with people who are from samecountry.One of the most beneficial things of studying abroad is to be ableto learn foreign languages from daily life.To speak more than twolanguages is necessity now because we have many chances to talk to peoplewho are from overseas by business and even daily life.Most companiesrequire us whether we can speak another language or not today.It is notunusual that people can speak more than 2 languages fluently any more.It means that borders of each county are getting low,and more people goout from their own countries recently than a decade ago.“We thinklanguage proficiency is one of the best things that can come out of studyabroad”(Rooney 2).As she mentions,studying abroad equals to learnforeign language.Naturally foreign students can learn another language.The more they improve their language skills,the more they can enjoy theirlives and make many friends who are native speakers.What do you expect when you travel abroad?You will expect differentexperiences from your culture.Of course,you can feel difference,butif you really want to experience different culture,you have to stay there.Otherwise you will not understand the culture in depth.Another advantageof studying abroad is that you can experience many interesting things.For example,there are different religions in different countries.Mostly,East Asian countries are Buddhism,Middle Asian is Islam,and Christianityis the one of the biggest religions in the world.There are many uniqueor mixed religions all over the world.If students go to these certainplaces,they will experience different religious and traditional events.It is also very important to understand other cultures and people.Theymight feel weird,strange,or even sad,and annoyed,but these feelingshelp their thoughts wideand flexible becausethere is noright or wrongculture.My friend,Satoko Kogure,talked about her opinions of studyingabroad.“Im enjoying studying abroad in the US.I met a lot of people,and I could get different opinions and thoughts from them.I sometimesfeel tired of this society and culture,but many people encourage me.Whatmakes me really happy is that people try to understand me and they areinterested in my culture.I like talking about cultures with people whohave different cultures”(Kogure).She appeals to her emotions andcharacters.She mentions what she got and felt something warm from thiscountry and people.In addition,she said that she was discriminated byAmerican students at university.However,people who discriminated herrecovered her.They had not considered her situation when they understoodwhat foreign people feel about staying other countries.Finally,sheappealed that,“What we have to do when we communicate with foreignersis not to be ethnocentrism.Everyone is also different even if they arefrom same country.Thus,we cannot say that this ethnic group is rightand others are wrong”(Kogure).There are no bad things to know othercultures.The third advantage is to study much harder.Local students canunderstand what the teacher talks about during the class,whereasinternational students have a difficulty of following classes because ofthe gap of language,so we spend much more time for studying than studentswho are native speakers.Moreover,international students pay tuitiontwice as local students pay.It helps us study harder.Therefore,we haveto study hard to get good scores and not to waste money.Actually,manyforeign students get good grades and scholarships.Moreover,if we do nothave a strong will about study,we cannot gain anything from thisexperience,and even we cannot live in another country.Hence,we are ableto have confidence totry something newwhen we studyharder and harder.On the other hand,however,students who want to study abroad shouldnot forget that they would also experience sad,hard,and bad things.Oneof the disadvantages is students are always facing difficulty of language.In classes,students sometimes do not know what the teachers talk about,they do not know what to do,and they miss very important information.Besides,they hesitate to ask what the other students are doing.Becauseof that,people seem to think that international students cannot speakthe language at all so that people sometimes misunderstand or even ignorethem.Actually,most international students learn the languages beforestudying abroad,but the native speakers speaking speed is totallydifferent from the speed that foreign students learn in their owncountries.Moreover,every language has difficult pronunciations.Language teachers can understand what foreigners say because the teachershave already gotten used to listen to foreigners speaking.But it isa little bit hard for general people to understand it.Thus,foreignstudents are disappointed to their language skills.Another problem of communicating with people who speak differentlanguages is there are many words that have same meanings or similarmeanings,or even a word has several meanings.Taking exams is hard forinternational people.First of all we have to understand exactly what theteachers ask about.Even we use dictionaries during the exams,dictionaries make us more confuse.Consequently,it takes more time tofinish than local students.It is very interesting to know other cultures,but it is hard to livein another culture.We do feel different and uncomfortable living indifferent countries.There is a proverb,which is“When in Rome do asthe Romans do”.This is true.If you behave as if you were in your country,you will be scorned because what you do might be bad manner or taboo inthe country.But we cannot imitate everything local people do,and wesometimes cannot respect what they do.These differences make studentsannoy and frustrate.In addition,international students are sometimesdiscriminated because of their race and ethnic groups.Especially,discrimination against Arab people became severe after September 11th2001.This is an article,which titled,“So,where are you from”,writtenby Kristina Lane.This is about the situation of Middle East universitystudents studying in United States of America after the accident happened.Actually,they are in the very difficult situation.They are dealt within the same way as suspects.Many Arab students were arrested or detainedas suspects of the terrorism just because they are from Arabic countries(Lane 5).Even if they were born in the US,and have US citizenships,theyare still discriminated because of their race.Unfortunately,my Indianfriend was attacked by Americans.We do not know why it happened,but hesaid that it was because of his race.The author mentions that,“I viewit as a clear message that this country does not want Arab students tobe in the country”(Lane 2).She appeals emotions,which is what Arabstudents feel now,and how some Americans feel to them.Not only Arab students but also people from all over the world havebeen dealt with American government strictly.For example,it is difficultto enter the US now and to get any kinds of visa.We have to be checkedmore than before at the airports.Even we can enter the US luckily;wehave to submit many certificates to the government.Our all data isinputted into the computer.If you had a serious problem in another country,who would you ask tohelp?You would ask to people who are from same country.You could tellthem exactly and they could understand why you are worried.You wouldbetter to find someone whom you can trust in another country.However,it is not good to be with someone who is from same country all the time.Once international students find someone who is from same country,theyseem to be together anytime.When they feel homesick,they can encourageeach other,and it is comfortable to be the people.However,as a result,they tend to restrict ourselves into the small group,and lose the chanceto know the more diverse community.It does not make sense because we cameto study another language and make many friends who are native speakers.This is just waste of money.In these advantages and disadvantages,there are similarities.In thecase of language,if students try speaking a language to people who arethe native speakers,they will improve their language skills.However,if they stick to only same ethnic group,of course,to study abroad doesnot mean anything.It d epends on persons will whether studying abroadbecome their benefits or not.As the same as language,what they experienceand how they take things will decide worth of studying abroad.Goodexperiences make them confident,and they will think that studying abroadis worth doing.On the other hand,even if they experience bad things,they will learn something from the experiences,and these episodes willhelp them think wide and flexible.Either this experience becomesadvantage or disadvantage depends on students will and endeavor.Nobodycan help them,but everyone can encourage them if they try hard.I wondered why I decided to study abroad.When I decided to go toEngland,I just wanted to learn English.I thought if it spoke Englishfluently,it could be advantage to get a job.I did not think anythingmore.However,after staying in England,I realized what I was interestedin.I was interested in other cultures,customs,and behave.I was amazedthat there were so many unique and unbelievable things all over the world.That is why I decided to study Anthropology in English.Besides,I aminterested in Native Americans,too.Nowadays studying abroad programsare very well organized.For example,the program is length and strength;we can choose c urriculums,majors,and specializations,“Students bodydiversity-total size,geographic and cultural representations,professional backgrounds”,“Faculty and program diversity,international diversity of the faculty,and international scope of thecurriculum”,and so on(“Guide”9).We do not have to worry anythingabout complicated systems in another country.Therefore,my situation atpresent is perfect for me.However,I experienced many things,which werenot only good things but many bad things that were because of culturaldifferences and language difficulty.A bad experience makes meuncomfortable still now.But if I had not experienced it,my thought wouldnot be wide and flexible.As I said,I also have thousands of good memories.Hence,I would like many students to know that studying abroad has bothadvantages and disadvantages,but they can make it good way.Afterconsidering these things,I want them to study abroad.They willdefinitely gain something from this experience.