Study Abroad Adviser

At my first meeting with my Study Abroad Adviser, we discussed where I wanted to go and why and began the herculean process of of completing all of the paperwork necessary for my application to both UW and Braunschweig. Oh yeah, that’s something that will catch you off guard in a hurry. You will have to complete an application for the University of Wyoming and an application for the University or Program you wish to attend. It’s a bit of a redundancy I know, but there it is. It’s a bit of a redundancy I know, but there it is (not a typo). The application process was really not that difficult and the my advisor was incredible helpful in hunting down the necessary information. There was a lot of work to be done but plenty of time and I had been expecting much more.

It was at this point that I ran into my first real setback and major disappointment. I had heard from various sources that it would not be necessary to start processing all of the paperwork and applications until the semester before my departure. As I wasn’t planning on traveling until the spring semester, I waited until Fall Semester of 2012 to meet with my academic advisor and to start applying for scholarships. BIG mistake! At the University of Wyoming (I have now experience with other universities) the majority of the scholarships are only awarded on a yearly basis regardless of when they will be implemented. Even though I would not need the money until April of 2013, the most of the international scholarships to which I could apply had deadlines as early as January 16, 2012. This was a major disappointment and I had to scramble to meet the remaining deadlines. Despite this obstacle, I was still able to receive substantial financial aid in the form of the Cheney Scholarship, the A&S Sanders-Walters Study Abroad Scholarship, and a Study Abroad Scholarship from the College of Engineering.

My advice to anyone seeking to spend a semester abroad is simply this. DO IT EARLY! I would recommend meeting with a Study Abroad Adviser at least two semesters before you plan to leave and as early on as humanly possible. Don’t let anyone (friends, family, whoever) convince you to put it off until later. You lose absolutely nothing by taking the initiative this far in advance and it will help you avoid my predicament with the scholarships. There is also some other great information that you can get from this process I wish I had found in advance. For one, websites for universities like Braunschweig can be very confusing, redundant, outdated, and difficult to navigate, and that is assuming you have a fast way to translate the page (I recommend Google Chrome for this as it has an automatic translation option). Looking back, the scholarships should have been obvious, but an early meeting can help avoid these problems. Finally, be sure to ask about the Study Abroad Handbook. This is a resource that I did not find out about until late in the process and it is just filled with great information including a list of books that will help you understand a country’s culture in advance.