Can You Study Abroad as an Engineering Student?

Guest post: Lauren Walker, mechanical engineering student, Lehigh University

Many people think that studying abroad is pretty much a myth if you’re an engineering student. Well that’s definitely not true. Last semester, I spent about four months living in Madrid, by taking part in the IES Madrid Engineering program.

Last fall, I began speaking to the study abroad office, as well as the associate chair of mechanical engineering at Lehigh University. The options they were telling me about were in Australia, England, Ireland, etc – basically all English-speaking countries. I didn’t want to study in England or Ireland, because I had already been to a few different cities in England and when I was younger I spent about 10 days every summer in Ireland. I didn’t want to go to Australia, because I wanted to choose somewhere with easier options to travel to other countries. So, I basically wanted to study abroad in Europe, but not in an English-speaking country.

Want to study abroad? Then ask!

I spoke to my advisor saying I wanted to study abroad and his response was, “How does Madrid sound?” At first I was shocked, because the only Lehigh program we had in Madrid required students to be fluent in Spanish. It turned out he was talking about a different program, which didn’t require fluency, and in fact, didn’t require any knowledge of Spanish. I had taken Spanish in high school so I thought this would be a perfect option. We talked about course options and laid out a schedule for how I would finish my degree.

So, if studying abroad is important to you and it’s something you want to do, I’d say look into it as soon as you can and talk to your adviser. It definitely is possible, but you have to be the one to initiate the process and start planning early.

Study abroad or co-op program?

I would suggest studying abroad if you can, because it truly is a unique experience. My sophomore year, I was debating between taking part in the co-op program and studying abroad, because it didn’t seem like I would be able to study abroad and do co-op while still graduating in four years. So I had a difficult decision to make.

Doing a co-op program really helps your career by potentially setting you up for a job offer before you graduate. However, I felt that I’m going to be spending the rest of my life working, and although I might get the chance to go abroad and do some travelling, I probably wouldn’t be living in another country for four months.

Living somewhere and just going there on vacation are two different things entirely. When you speak to most college graduates, one thing I’ve heard many times is, “The one thing I regret most is not taking the chance to study abroad.” I didn’t want that to be me in the future, so I seized the chance that I was given.

Learning a new language and culture was a great experience in Madrid. I got to travel to so many different places. To name a few, I went to Valencia, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Sevilla, Segovia, and many more. Almost every weekend, I was going somewhere new, which is a priceless and unbelievable experience. So if you ever find yourself in that position, I would definitely recommend studying abroad; you won’t regret it!

Lauren is majoring in mechanical engineering at Lehigh University, and is part of the Lehigh Engineering Social Media team. She contributes to the official blog of Lehigh University Mechanical Engineers here.