If you’re thinking of studying abroad or already making plans, meeting with a study abroad advisor is a critical step. Here are a few tips I have to help prepare you to get the most out of that meeting! I wrote these from my experience as a study abroad advisor in higher education, but the tips apply across education levels.
Meeting with your study abroad advisor can sometimes feel like an unnecessary task or a waste of time, but trust me – you’ll get so much more out of your experience by making the most of these appointments!
1. Do your own research
To be clear, I’m not saying you need to figure out your entire plan on your own. That defeats the purpose of this whole post and may make you miss out on a lot.
What I do mean is take a look around your school’s (and the program’s if applicable) website(s) and read up on the basics. What program types are there? Are there eligibility requirements? What are the deadlines to apply? How does financial aid apply to study abroad?
With this information, you can also start thinking about and answering some questions that will help guide the next step:
- How long do you want to be abroad?
- What kind of accommodation do you want? Homestay, dorm, apartment?
- Do you want to be integrated into a foreign university or be more center-based with other study abroad students?
- What classes do you need to take while abroad to stay on track to graduate? (please meet with your academic advisor and make sure you have a clear understanding of your degree plan before you go abroad. But that could be a whole other post.)
Doing this research and reflection ahead of time will make your appointment so much more useful and productive! So much.
2. Check if there are requirements to complete beforehand (and, yes, complete them)
Depending on the set up of the scheduling system, this may be easy or may be difficult to find. When I was an advisor, I had a few questions to complete when signing up for an appointment. For certain meeting types, there were additional questionnaires from the application that needed to be completed beforehand. Make sure that you’re reading all of the emails you receive from the study abroad office to ensure you know which requirements you need and where to find them.
Completing these requirements guarantees that you can actually hold your advising appointment instead of being postponed until they’re ready. They also ensure that your advisor can be ready for you right at the start of the meeting and already prepared any additional research required. Sometimes, filling out these questionnaires can even tell us that you need to be meeting with someone else instead!
3. If you’re comfortable, disclose!
You’re not required to disclose anything to your study abroad advisor or on your application, but it can be beneficial to you in the long run if you do. Some people think that disclosing any information about medical conditions, necessary accommodations, concern over finances, or anything else will impact their chances of being accepted into study abroad programs. I can assure you, that’s not the case!
Instead, it lets your advisor know what to take into account when recommending programs or resources for you. For example, if you receive learning accommodations for longer test times, we can advise you which programs can provide those same accommodations and which cannot. If you need mobility accommodations, we can get in contact with the provider or host institution early to make sure the housing, university, and center are accessible. It is so much easier to plan and prepare for accessibility needs when we have advance notice and can begin preparation early.
It might seem nerve wracking, but trust me, study abroad advisors just want to make sure you’re on the best program for you and that you have the resources that you need. We’ve seen it all – there’s no judgment from our side.
4. Take notes and ask questions
This seems so self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised how many students I’d meet with who wouldn’t take a single note in our meeting. And if they’re not taking notes, they’re also less likely to ask questions – which is where you really get the most out of the appointment. We cover a lot of topics and share a lot of resources when advising, but it’s also unrealistic to think you’ll absorb and remember all of it without also jotting down notes.
Ideally, advisors will be able to send you a follow up email with all the links and information you talked about. Realistically, most advisors have such a large student load it’s just not feasible to do that for every student. As long as you write down names or key words, you should be able to find those resources again when you’re continuing your research on your own. And if you can’t, your advisor is much more likely to be able to respond to a specific question in an email (for example, “What was the name of the scholarship for Pell Grant recipients you mentioned in our meeting?”) than to redo an entire advising appointment in writing.
Another benefit to writing notes during the meeting? It will trigger your mind to think of questions or realize areas you don’t understand quite as well while you’re still talking with your advisor. You know more about your situation than the advisor does, so oftentimes by asking your questions, we get a clearer idea of where you are and what information or resources could be helpful for you.
5. Be open!
A lot of students entered my office with an idea in their head of what they want their study abroad to be. It’s easy to hear what your friends or classmates did and want to do the exact same thing. Instagram, too, can tell a powerful story, but it also tells a narrow and simplified story.
As people, we like to stick with what’s comfortable and known. So it makes sense that students will often attach to the “safest” option – mainly the one they’ve heard the most about. I do agree it’s important to hear your peers’ first-hand experiences and you often get a more holistic view through those stories.
However…
Closing yourself to other options is an easy way to choose a program that doesn’t fit your needs. An engineering student wanting to go on a program their sociology major friend went on could throw them off their degree path and add extra time to graduate. A very risk-averse person who’s never gone abroad choosing a highly independent and more isolated program because their outgoing friend went on it could be taking on more than they can handle and end up with a horrible experience.
Advisors are there specifically to help you find the program that you will succeed most in – not the one your friend succeeded in, not the one your family want you to succeed in, not the one Instagram wants you to go on. Be honest about your academic and personal needs and then be open to the suggestions your advisor gives you. We’re there to advise you, not tell you what to do, but we are the experts for a reason.
Your perfect program is waiting out there for you…let your advisor help you find it!
Do you have any other suggestions for meeting with a study abroad advisor? What else do you want to know from an advisor/international education professional?
Leave a reply