Visiting beautiful Sydney, Australia, or lovely London could do more for students than provide pictures for a photo album.
A Study Abroad Fair, put on by the MSU Office of Study Abroad on Thursday, allowed students to view more than 100 exhibits and decide which location was best for a semester or summer of eventful off-campus learning.
Last school year, 2,787 students went abroad through MSU programs, office spokeswoman, Cheryl Benner said.
That makes MSU the nation's top public university in the percentage of students who study abroad, Benner said.
The study abroad programs stray from ordinary classroom work — lectures, tests and studying.
"This experience taught me to be very independent, to learn how to navigate around a country where everything is the opposite of what I'm used to," said Ryan Muneio, an accounting freshman who attended a freshman seminar program in Ireland last summer.
"It allows you to feel like you're a part of the native culture and not an outsider."
Some students learn about their own misconceptions.
"It makes you aware that we're not the king of the world and that there are other people out there who are just as smart as us and not everyone is so under-developed like people think," said Catie Parker, an animal science junior who studied last summer in Australia and New Zealand.
Parker recommended that students who plan to study abroad during their junior or senior years hold off on taking some university-required classes. Then, they can take them while abroad instead.
Those classes can be shorter and much more stimulating in a foreign place.
"Leave the required classes for your study-abroad semesters because they are easy to get," Parker said. "I did my ISS credit in three weeks as opposed to an entire semester, and it was very enjoyable."
Some professors and program coordinators agree students need to study abroad in order to find out what they would really love to do in life.
"I've had a number of students who have studied abroad and had life-transforming experiences," said Eric Freedman, an assistant journalism professor who also is assistant dean for international studies and programs.
"They've changed majors, they've changed career goals and they've met people elsewhere in the world who they would not have met before."
Some parents may get skeptical about letting their children leave the country, Freedman said. But the Office of Study Abroad seems to soothe the concern of troubled parents.
"They approach this program in a way that often reassures their parents because there is a structure to it," Freedman said. "It's not simply, 'Hey, a couple of my friends and I are going to backpack around central Europe for the summer. Mom, can I have some money?'"
