Je m'appelle Gabriel, et j'apprends le français.

Recently, the trend to study abroad has been more and more obvious. What on earth has motivated those people to go overseas and be willing to study in another country? In my opinion, I think the reasons are mainly the sharpening of language skills, the pursuit of deep knowledge, and the expansion of an individual’s horizons.

A foreign country provides the best environment for foreign language learning. When studying abroad, a learner could improve both professional language usages, basic daily conversations, and furthermore, speaking skills. Take English for example. In domestic schools, English is taught as if it were merely a school study, rather than a language. Most students are trained to take tests, not to communicate in English. I consider it a very significant gain when studying abroad.

The engineering techniques or arts are more brilliant in their origins than at home. In Taiwan, a lot of knowledge and technology originate from Europe, America, or Japan. In order to seize more profound ideas and get better understanding of some specific subjects which came from different countries, people have to study in local universities or learn with a local teacher. For example, Switzerland is best known for its watch making handcraft, and many technicians are sent to Swiss to inspect and learn every year. After all, domestic techniques might not be mature enough, and native specialists could merely have a smattering of such a region.

Studying in foreign countries helps a person expand his horizons. Being new in and not familiar with a different country, a newcomer could always have misunderstanding or unhappy experiences. Things don’t go as well as he thought, and this is called “culture shock.” Yet with time passing through, he will find it just the different viewpoints of things. In the long run, this person learns a brand-new way to think, and this would help him a lot when he returns to his own country.

In sum, studying abroad helps one to reach self-expectation, promote self-evaluation, and last but not least, widen his horizons. This is very significant, because, in such a competitive generation, failing to unceasingly promote oneself will lead to the elimination from this society.