Why Go Abroad?

Numbers speak volume. Where study and intern abroad websites make grandiose statements, few statements are backed with facts. Life Abroad clears the haze. Here are the facts:

• Of those students surveyed, 76% said the skills they acquired while interning abroad influenced their career path (Abroad View publication, 2009).
• 262,000 US college students studied abroad in 2008, or less than 3% of all US college students (Open Doors Survey, 2009).
• 670,000 foreign students studied abroad in the United States in 2008 (Open Doors Survey, 2009). Non-US college students have an edge in worldly experiences than US college students.
• Social science majors and business majors are 9 times more likely to go abroad to study and/or intern than foreign language majors (Open Doors Survey, 2009).
• Of those students surveyed, 86% returned to the States with a portfolio of work from their internship abroad that they say couldn’t never have been achieved in the States (Panrimo survey, 2009).

81% of the class of 2008 at St. Lawrence University found a job through networking and interning-either abroad or in the States (2009).