Six months before beginning graduate school at Linköping University in Sweden, Maria Kousoula left her native Greece to stay with a friend in Sweden. As a European Union citizen, Kousoula did not need a visa to relocate and used the extra time, including the summer, to prepare for university in Sweden.
“I fell in love with everything — the Swedish nature, the culture, the organized and well-structured lifestyle, the quality of life, and of course, Campus Valla Linköping,” Kousoula says, referring to the oldest and largest of the university’s campuses.
While not all students can arrive months in advance, international undergraduate and graduate students moving abroad for global university studies should plan to use the summer before school starts effectively. Here are some options to consider.
[Read: Consider First-Year Interest Groups as International Student.]
Take summer classes. Whether at home or abroad, students can enroll at a college or university offering summer classes. Many schools allow students to take a summer session and get ahead on courses.
“Summer is a great time to prepare for college, especially for the international student. Whether they study in France or the United States, I always recommend that the student take coursework,” says Linda Kreitzman, founder of Kreitzman Consulting, a California-based academic and professional advising firm.
Kreitzman says students can join summer sessions without being enrolled in a degree program at that school, such as, for example, at any University of California campus. She recommends students take a rhetoric course in writing or speaking, as she says it’s important to learn how to make academic arguments.
David Comp, assistant provost for global education at Columbia College Chicago and founder and principal at International Higher Education Consulting, says students also have the option of taking a course for credit online or via massive open online courses, or MOOCs.
“Another option that doesn’t involve formal studying is to watch engaging and academically focused content online such as lectures or educational programming,” Comp says.
Kousoula, who is pursuing a master’s in Gender Studies — Intersectionality and Change, used the summer to download materials from her university program to start studying in advance.
“I was able to visit the library on spot and look at books and some recommended resources,” Kousoula says.
[Read: Know the Benefits of Summer Courses for International Students.]
Take an online language course. Incoming international students can also prepare for school abroad by taking a relevant language course. For example, a student attending Temple University‘s Japan campus might want to learn Japanese over the summer.
Students heading abroad to study at a university where the language of instruction is not their primary language need to prepare linguistically for their forthcoming studies, Comp says.
“Language preparation via an online course or app, such as Duolingo, WordBrewery or Babbel, is a critical component of one’s future success in the classroom,” he says.
Kreitzman says whenever a student masters a foreign language, he or she will feel more comfortable in a new environment, be less shy and interact with teaching assistants and professors more.
She says in her experience, students who focused on language before beginning their studies “were ready to get going much faster than those who did not.”
That’s something Russian national Sergey Nyrkov, a graduate student pursuing a Master of Science in finance and economics at West Texas A&M University, experienced. He says he realized during his first semester that his English skills were not enough to maintain a GPA above a 3.0 and keep up with the three required classes he had to take to maintain his visa status as an international student.
“I had to relearn how to read in English, as the regular reading with understanding and thinking through the topic was not fast enough to complete the semester with good grades,” Nyrkov says.
[Read: Consider Language When Picking an International University.]
Travel. New international students can also plan to use the summer as a time to travel. Experts say travel experience can help students become more successful students overseas.
“Traveling allows you to meet new people and this is exactly what you will do in college. So yes, traveling is a great opportunity to become more disciplined and interact with other people,” Kreitzman says.
Some students may want to use the summer to arrive early in the country where they’ll be studying. Experts say students should find out about visa policies before planning travel. Kreitzman says the immigration policies of the U.S. and Europe, for example, allow international students to arrive a month in advance.
“Travel prior to one’s studies lends to a new perspective and to better understanding of the new country and its people, language, culture and history,” Comp says.
He says summer travel in the host country can help students with cross-cultural adjustment issues and build communication skills for those who will study in a second language.
Kousoula says relocating to Sweden earlier gave her the opportunity to feel comfortable, especially during the first few days of classes. She says it helped her better focus on lectures and adapt to the new education system.
“I was already feeling like a local,” Kousoula says.
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How to Use the Summer Before Earning a Degree Abroad originally appeared on usnews.com
