Prototype Your Study Abroad: What to Do If You Are Not Ready to Do a Full-Scale Program Abroad Right Away

I'm often approached by people who say they would love to study abroad but are afraid of uprooting their life all at once and doing something as large-scale as a master's or a doctorate.

They are not alone in this. It's quite natural to ask questions like: What if I want to study abroad but taking a year or two off all at once is just too much for me? This is a valid concern.

Everyone is different, and if someone may find it easy to leave everything for a new life in a new country, others will be afraid to go all in right away. What if you don't like another country? What is the university is not as good of a fit as looks on paper? What if you have a nice job at home and don't want to burn all the bridges, not knowing what awaits you in the country of study?

If you are one of these people, there is a solution for you.

It's called prototyping.

A little bit of theory: According to the Cambridge Dictionary,

prototype is a first example of a product.

In the study abroad context, prototyping could mean doing a shorter, smaller version of a large-scale program that you want to do eventually, such as a master's or a PhD. Such smaller version can be, for instance:

• an academic conference
• a summer school
• an internship
• a research stay
• a student festival
• a competition abroad.

Doing a 'prototype' of your study abroad will help you test your assumptions about doing a bigger program abroad later on and see if it's actually something you'd like to do.

One of my favorite books on life strategies, Designing Your Life, says this about prototyping:

Most people are passionate about many different things, and the only way to know what they want to do is to prototype some potential lives, try them out, and see what really resonates with them.

and further:

Prototypes lower your anxiety, ask interesting questions, and get you data about the potential of the change that you are trying to accomplish.

Before I decided to do a master of laws in the US, I did a lot of 'prototypes' of study abroad.

When I started university, I hunted for every opportunity to study abroad. I applied for a program that the Moscow State University had with the University of Regensburg and did a fully-funded month of studies in Germany. Then, I signed up for a moot court competition for law students: The idea of doing it all in English and then going to compete in the United States with other teams from around the world felt incredibly alluring. I applied for the Paris Arbitration Academy and The Hague Academy of International Law as soon as a friend told me about their existence. All of these things came with scholarships and external sponsors (I could not have done them otherwise) and let me experience the study abroad first-hand but on a smaller scale.

These short trips helped me collect the empirical data: in-depth knowledge of various systems of education, understanding of the target country, and conversations with other people about their experiences.

They also reinforced my willingness to go on a full-scale study abroad. When the time came to choose a country for doing a master's, I had a more or less clear understanding of what I liked and where wanted to do it.

If you don't want to leave everything behind right away, try prototyping your study abroad first. Find a short-term program in your field of study and apply. This way, you can make assumptions about such things as a particular country, city, university, or discipline and then test them. See if you like it. See if that's what you truly want and need. Maybe you'll find out that a full-scale degree program is exactly what you need. Or maybe you'll find out that short-term programs are a better fit for you and you don't need to do anything that involves more resources.

Prototyping gets you data. With data, you can iterate.

Even if you can't go abroad, you can still prototype: For instance, find people who did the program you want and talk to them. Take part in an online conference or a summer school. Enroll in a low-cost program in your own country that will help you get a glimpse of what to expect, eg if you're thinking of changing fields. In my fourth year of university, I enrolled into Collège Universitaire Français de l'Université d'Etat de Moscou Lomonossov - a part of the Moscow State University where visiting professors from France were teaching French law and other disciplines in French. While I liked the study very much, it helped me realize that I didn't want to do a master of laws in France and this shorter program was enough for the needs that I had at the time.

If your university does not support study abroad programs, or it does but the selection process is not transparent enough, reach out to the universities you like and negotiate a program for yourself. It's possible - some of the people I know did exactly that.

Don't let anything or anyone stop you from achieving your goals and dreams.

Hope this helps and good luck!