Devil's Advocate: Is Going Abroad Worth It?

YES: Maria Ebrahim

Is the year abroad nothing short of a glorified holiday? My mother — and a handful of my Instagram story viewers — probably think so. I spent nine months on the University’s WIYA programme in Spain, teaching English at the University of Cádiz. Working rather than studying is a niche version of the year abroad, but it gave me a much-needed perspective on life outside the Bubble.

A year abroad is the one opportunity you have to travel, live somewhere new, and establish a different rhythm of life without full-time responsibilities. You can’t replicate that later on, as an adult, once work and demanding schedules define your life. It was a once in a lifetime window, which is exactly why it was worth it. And it isn’t just for language students — whatever you study, the same benefits apply. You gain independence, perspective, and the resilience that comes from reconstructing your life and forming bonds with strangers in a new, unfamiliar setting.

Before I left last September, I told my flatmates I wasn’t sure how I’d cope without the life I had established in St Andrews. Like most students with what I like to call ‘St Andrews Syndrome,’ for two years I had settled into the town and forgot that there was anything beyond these three streets and two beaches. The routines and experiences are familiar, close-knit, and safe. My year abroad was the inverse. The safety net disappeared, and I was dropped — literally — into a foreign land where I had to assemble my early twenties from the ground up. Physically being away strengthened my friendship circle by showing me who actually cared to stay in touch. Those are the lifelong friends I know I will have after graduation.

At my placement, my students were my age or older and most of my colleagues were around 40, which reminded me that university isn’t a template for real life. Within a month, I learnt it didn’t matter if I was tired, hungover, or not in the mood to teach. When a class had commuted in for their hour-long session with the native English speaker, I had to turn up prepared. Student life, especially at St Andrews, is largely self-centred — employment isn’t. It runs on reliability, coordination, and doing your part even when it’s inconvenient. The year abroad stripped back the inward-looking habits of university and replaced them with the need to be accountable to more than just myself.

It paid off more to have this experience at twenty rather than fresh out of school on a gap year when you’re fresh out of school. At twenty, you already have a degree in progress, friends to return to, and enough context to compare systems rather than just observe them. Time away shrank St Andrews to a realistic size. It’s a wonderful place to study but it isn’t the whole world — however loudly the Bubble suggests otherwise.

Yes, the workload was lighter, with fewer assignments and more daylight. The lack of structure is part of the value because you have to make your own. A year abroad is a university-approved time-out with unforgettable travel opportunities, language practice, and the allure of light duties. It won’t turn you into a worldly wanderluster or make you a better student, and it’s unlikely to dazzle an admissions panel. What it does is give you the space to gain competence in practical life outside of higher education and, in my case, marginally improve my Spanish fluency without drowning in the pressures of academic coursework. Let’s call it what it is — higher education’s nicest loophole.

NO: Stella Pak-Guénette

Studying abroad has been a conversation topic since September of first year. My friends and I would talk about where we’d go “when the time comes,” as if it were some inevitable part of the degree, somewhere between your first Raisin and writing your dissertation. I always assumed I’d want to, because who doesn’t want an excuse to move somewhere completely new for a few months? But lately I’ve been wondering: would it really be so bad to just stay in our lovely little corner of Fife?

Every semester, tons of St Andreans announce they’re off to study abroad — Melbourne, the US, Hong Kong, you name it. I can’t help but question why we’re all so desperate to pack up and leave a place that’s already abroad — unless, of course, you're actually from Fife. 

If you think about it, many of us already did the hard part. We adjusted to a town where there are more red gowns than taxis, where the same three streets are somehow a whole world, and where everything closes by 6pm.

It’s not that I don’t see the appeal. I do. The idea of pressing “refresh” on your entire life for a few months sounds thrilling, at least in theory. Who wouldn’t want to move somewhere new and claim it’s just “for academic reasons”? But the part no one advertises is how much admin it takes to reinvent yourself. New flat, new friends, new kettle. Perhaps I’m lazy.

We all spent our first years just trying to find our footing, and now, just like that, right as it starts to feel comfortable, we’re told to pack up and go “expand our horizons.” But even that promise is misleading, because only a handful of people actually get to go. It’s not an opt-in adventure; it’s a lottery. After all, for most of us, the original horizon already expanded when we moved to St Andrews in the first place. That was the study abroad.

The study abroad pitch is always about growth, but it’s a very particular kind of growth: the kind that sounds great when you're in an interview reflecting on your time at St Andrews, how you got to study both in this little town and Australia. You really have to "cultivate a global perspective.” Thus, the thin line between adventure and marketing brochure blurs fast.

And yet, with all this talk, I’ll probably still apply. Hypocritical? Perhaps. But, PSA, it's not because I think St Andrews isn’t enough — it is. It’s because the idea of starting over again, terrifying and inconvenient and deeply expensive as it sounds, also feels like a test worth failing at least once. 

Maybe that’s what studying abroad really is: Not a chance to “broaden horizons,” but to realise how broad they already were in the first place. That the version of yourself who moved to St Andrews with two suitcases and a questionable raincoat already did the brave thing.

So, is studying abroad worth it? Probably not, at least for me. But then again… ask me after I’ve finished my application essay about “embracing new perspectives.”