If you are a student in India, you have the opportunity to study abroad. It can be a really worthwhile experience, enjoyable, exhilarating and enlightening. It can also be difficult and frustrating. Getting to grips with studying in another country is not simple though the rewards are great if you succeed. Those who have experienced it often feel they have gained a good deal. They claim to have acquired a more balanced appreciation of different cultures, and a skill and sensitivity in dealing with cultural issues which has enhanced their subsequent studies. Some even suggest that the opportunity to study abroad has opened their eyes to the outside world and made them feel more like true global citizens.

But because Study Abroad is not without its challenges, everyone is agreed that, to get the most out of it, you have to prepare carefully, to know what you are taking on and to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities that arise. That is what this book is about. If you do decide that you would like to study abroad, it is no longer difficult to arrange. It is not necessary to do all the work of setting things up yourself. There are dozens of programmes available which have the approval of the universities and colleges in the United Kingdom. You don’t need to be concerned

about identifying places abroad which would be good for your studies. That is done for you. You don’t have to worry about different curricula or different marking systems. Your own university will have decided what you need to do and how your work will be assessed. All you have to do is to discover what is available and what will suit you best. And you then have to make up your mind to apply.

Study Abroad is the term generally used nowadays for programmes that allow students in one country to do part of their degree studies in another. Despite its widespread use, it can cause confusion. It is obviously meant to indicate that the main purpose of the programmes is to enable you to study outside your own country. But many students who go abroad to study are seeking an overseas degree, which Study Abroad students usually are not. Other terms have also been employed – visiting study, occasional study, non-graduating study – to make this distinction clear. But they, too, have their weaknesses. As a Study Abroad student, you are not simply visiting another university, you are studying there. Nor are you studying only on occasions (or at least it is hoped not) but on a full-time basis. And you certainly will have the intention of graduating, even if not at your host institution. ‘Study Abroad’ has probably become accepted only as the least misleading term.

The key element in these programmes which the term misses is that your studies abroad can count towards your degree at home. Whatever courses you take or projects you complete can replace whatever you would have been required to do had you remained at home. You don’t normally have to take work abroad with you and you don’t normally have to catch up on what you have missed when you return. The overseas work substitutes entirely for the work at home and is held to be equivalent to it in almost every way.

Over the last two decades, Study Abroad has become much more popular and its academic value more widely appreciated. Where once it was largely undertaken only by language students, it is now often a requirement for other degree subjects, particularly those with an immediate vocational relevance, like engineering or business, and those with a strongly international curriculum, like fine art or area studies. But the largest growth has been the result of students opting for Study Abroad not because it is a requirement but simply for its own sake.

This topic is intended to help everyone contemplating studying abroad or confronted by the need to do so and who perhaps knows little of what is involved. It is designed for students at college or university who are considering Study Abroad as an option and for those still at school who want to know something about this opportunity within higher and further education. It is aimed particularly at those who are thinking of taking on international study for the first time. But the idea is to conduct you through the whole process, so that the book can also serve after you embark on the study. The focus is largely on undergraduates, though some sections will also have an interest for postgraduates. It is hoped that schools counsellors, parents and officials involved in advising students going abroad may also find here something of use.