Career Considerations
Things to Think About Before Going Abroad
Understand your purpose for going abroad as it relates to your career. It will be much easier to articulate the value of your experience to an employer after the fact if your purpose is linked to your career goals.
What skills are you trying to grow? Language skills? Cultural competency?
How can you best grow those skills? Are the programs you’re considering going to be effective?
Does the program include experiential learning/internship opportunities?
Go abroad with goals and strategies to help you learn as much as you can about your host country.
Plan to take advantage of the opportunity to interact with people from different backgrounds and be curious about their life experiences.
Determine how you will grow your skills through your experience so you can be intentional about doing so.
Network
Check out the Alumni feature on LinkedIn to see if there are any W&M alums you can connect with during your time abroad.
Work/Internships
If you’re interested in gaining professional experience while abroad, some programs are designed to include an internship or field study role as part of your academic requirements.
It's a good idea to consider the recruiting timelines for different organizations for applied learning or full-time positions of interest, as the process may occur while you are abroad.