The Harm of Studying Abroad

In the interest of intellectual honesty, it's possible that I'm an extreme outlier in this respect. I've spent the last year traveling around the world, I find it really easy to share emotional vulnerability with strangers, and I've made meaningful connections with people in every country I've lived in for more than a week.

This is likely not true for most people.

>When study is nothing but rote learning, who doesn’t lose their appetite?

Interesting that this first criticism is commonly leveled at students from the People's Republic of China. Does the language barrier force students to rote-learn to keep up?

I know from personal experience studying overseas that rote-learning was my default mode to try and keep up.

Are all the critiques of PRC students for rote-learning when studying in the PRC false? It seems an extraordinary claim give personal and abundant reported experience.

>If you are wearing yourself out every day, you naturally embrace the spirit of “minimalism,” in which you do as little as possible, and once you’ve finished something you go to sleep, loathe to take the initiative on your own to explore anything else.

Seems language struggles could be blamed for this.

>it makes no difference if you don’t go to bookstores in the US, but if you bring this habit back with you, it means that you don’t go to bookstores in China either.

The third criticism seems a spurious addition to the next two.

> you wind up really lonely, which makes you appreciate the vitality of life in China. When you come back, you’re like a bird let out of a cage, and your only urge is to fly. Who wants to study?

There are many places in the PRC even today that has never seen a foreigner. Exposure to foreign ideas and ways is limited even in the cities. The result is a massive culture shock when going overseas. If there is a language barrier then it is going to be hard to connect. The result is the PRC students form small and impenetrable cliques. That has to be a lonely experience.

>trying to think in a foreign language is like trying to scratch an itch through your boots

This is why a lot of PRC students now study abroad before going to an overseas university to avoid these cultural and language difficulties. If they have difficulty after that then there are other problems.

>if you live abroad for a long time, you will miss many theoretically interesting things happening in China

There are big changes afoot in the PRC. If the student is unprepared to gain the most from an overseas education then they shouldn't go. Since the U of C was mentioned, the US has been underestimated many times in its past. Time will tell which was the better choice.

The seventh criticism makes no sense to me. It seems wrong or, worse, self-effacing in the worst way for a young vital student.

> because of various difficulties abroad, you wind up feeling rebellious, and spend your days arguing with foreigners.

This engagement is precisely why you go abroad and is a big part of Western thought.

Can't say that everything is wrong but the solution is not to pull back but to study outside the PRC with the proper expectations and preparation.

I disagree a lot here. I did study abroad and I'd argue that this might have been a one of the best things that has ever happened to me:

1. This is completely false. You have just as much time as you would have had back at home. Yes, you might have more things to worry about being on your own but you can certainly make up for it and learn to make compromises quickly. Expecting to come out fully prepared out of university is plain stupid. In most scenarios you end up with an average amount of theoretical and practical knowledge but you are nowhere before you end up crashing into your first job when you realize that the studying is just beginning.

2. That is highly personal. You either live with the mindset that you need a degree to get a job or take the most out of the situation. If the degree is your primary goal, then yes, you won't have the adequate will and determination to better yourself. I had professors that spent 5 or 6 hours after lectures talking to me and explaining some nitty-gritty details just because they saw I had genuine interest. I never asked them to dedicate any more than a few minutes but on multiple occasions we ended up staying in the hallways way past midnight discussing different topics.

3. I honestly don't get that point.

4. While the friends and family statement is correct and fitting in somewhere new is something that takes forever, regardless of the tons of effort and dedication, if you find peace in being alone, it's a huge advantage. Sooner rather than later I fell in love with digging deeper and deeper and following rabbit holes that most of my peers had no clue about. Eventually I became the second-best student by a fraction of a percent, given that I was studying in a foreign language.

5. Depending on what you are studying, this might be a good thing. My native language has very little in common with the two other languages I've had to learn, other than the fact that they are all European. Their structure is vastly different, two different alphabets, completely different way of constructing sentences and thoughts in general. For software engineering, I feel like this is a brilliant mental exercise.

6. In a vastly globalized world, this seems like a non-issue. If anything it teaches you to look at things from multiple perspectives and take the best out of both worlds. Certain solutions can be applied successfully in completely opposite social and political environments and solve multiple problems in the process.

7. Same as 3, I really don't understand the point the author is trying to make.

This is an exasperating bit of casual racism I see all the time. A Chinese person has said something you disagree with, they must have no personal agency, they must be trying to curry favor with the government!

the CPC is not Santa Claus, ffs

Sounds like something out of a travelogue by a Victorian gentleman of leisure.