One of the more impactful opportunities any college student can participate in within their academic career is studying abroad. While any time outside of the United States can seem like a very intimidating venture, there are so many benefits to experiencing an academic and personal life in a new country.

As a student within the CUNY system, there are a number of study abroad programs that are available to choose from. Each of the 23 CUNY campuses has established its own connections to schools and universities abroad from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and even Australia. The simplest and most efficient tool to navigate the variety of programs is the Global CUNY website.

Upon accessing the site three types of CUNY abroad programs are listed: Faculty-led, Exchange, and Affiliated. Each type of program has its own benefits depending on the intended outcome of studying abroad. The first program variation is a faculty-led program which is a short-term program that typically runs over the summer or winter semesters. The second is an exchange program that grants CUNY students the opportunity to pay the same tuition they would at a CUNY institution at a university abroad, while a student from the same university attends a CUNY college. This option allows students to attend the overseas university for a semester or the academic year of their choosing. The third, more conventional option is the affiliated program. This program can vary in duration from being a semester-long, a year-long, or throughout a summer/winter semester. The courses taken during this time are toward the major or minor of the student attending and the cost of attendance is that of the foreign institution though paid through the sponsoring CUNY college.

While there are options listed on the Global CUNY website, students are not limited to abroad programs provided through the CUNY campuses. Additional abroad programs are also available to CUNY students though they do not reap the same financial benefits as those provided through the many CUNY campuses.

Each CUNY campus has its own array of scholarships that its students looking to study abroad can apply to. Additionally, students who are United States citizens qualify for national scholarships that financially support a large sum of the expenses. The most well-known of these scholarships are the Fullbright Program and the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship Program. Both of these programs have extensive applications that require preparation before the application date. These include general individual information and personal statements detailing your intentions within the abroad program and how they will impact you as a student, your studies, and your career goals. The statements vary in length and are accompanied by additional written statements and writing samples per the requirements of each application. It is important to note that these scholarships have extensive written components and require ample time to complete and review.

According to data gathered by Open Doors, 280,716 students originally from the United States studied abroad for academic credit within the Fall 2022 – Spring 2023 semesters, an upspike of nearly 100,000 of the year prior. Studying expands the types of experience within the academic and personal lives of students as well as the skills needed to navigate different cultures and peers both socially and linguistically. All that is gained throughout a study abroad program can also grant students an edge over other candidates when looking for employment. Marketable skills such as worldliness, international knowledge, increased self-confidence, and the ability to speak a second language are achievable skills by studying abroad that can greatly impact your entry into the workforce post-graduation.

In the spring semester of her sophomore year, City College junior, Queen Carrasco, studied abroad in London. The CUNY BA student double majoring in social data science and curatorial studies expressed gratitude for her time abroad. “I think, in general, the whole experience was very educational to me as a person,” she said, adding that “[it] also shaped what I wanted to do, kind of formed my career decisions.”

Carrasco chose to study at Roehampton University through the CCNY affiliate program to get more familiar with London. The city where her mom and part of her family are from that she was fortunate enough to stay with. While there, she attended classes geared toward her interests: Corpus Linguistics, Business Data Analysis, and a Python class. She’s considering PhD programs in the city which would be related to media and digital cultural studies and/or sociology, and computational social science. She explained that while finalizing the major she would pursue in the CUNY BA program, her interests heavily shaped the courses she took.

Her studies would also be greatly influenced by the culture that London has: “I wanted to see, for my curatorial side, the opportunities that London has. I think London has a robust arts and creative scene which I really wanted to explore within the semester and the time I had.”

In addition to the financial support provided by her family in London, Carrasco was able to cover the abroad expenses in part with the Harcourt Scholarship that she has been part of as well as a grant called the Barbara Price Fund that CUNY BA students can apply to for funding toward their studies. This grant can be applied toward undergraduate research, study abroad programs, and unpaid internships.

Ultimately, her time abroad greatly impacted the trajectory that her career would take, “In general, it showed me the different avenues that I could end up in.” She added that even in terms of networking, she remembers her professors and the means to contact them. The projects that she worked on while there are also significant to her career journey: “I still have some of the projects that I did in my time there that I now reference in my [current] work when I’m applying somewhere, like fellowships.”

Carrasco added that she ultimately saw what London had that New York did not and how that impacted what she wants for her future.