Decision Time…

This article was written by Jess Jones, published on 15th December 2020. 

It is December and I am faced with the first of many decisions regarding my year abroad next year: how to spend my year. My options are one of three, British Council teaching assistant, Internship, or University placement and each come with a long list of pros and cons. After many hours of deliberation, I think I have decided to do a uni placement for the year and I thought it could prove helpful to share my thoughts on each option.

Let’s start with the British Council, for as long as I can remember I’ve always been interested in teaching. Since the age of five I’ve subjected my little brother to numerous hours of play schools, and when on university open days when I heard that becoming a teaching assistant for a year was a possibility, I was sure that was what I was going to do. A year gaining teaching experience and with enough free time to travel too, it sounded idyllic and to be completely honest I’m not sure what made me change my mind on this option. In the end I think it came down to the uncertainty of making friends my own age, it’s isolating enough to be in a foreign country on your own and if the only people that you have connections with are your work colleagues the situation seems very daunting. Of course, you are likely to befriend your housemates, but it’s still not the same social scene as being at university for the year.

Moving on to getting a work placement or internship, again the biggest drawback in my opinion is the social side of things. From my experience working in the UK at part time jobs, I’ve never been particularly close to any of my work colleagues, although this may be because they have always been part time jobs so the time spent with them is limited, I still didn’t want this to happen on my year abroad. With the current situation surrounding Coronavirus, I’ve also been mindful that an internship is the most likely option to be cancelled last minute which would not be ideal. If borders suddenly close, as they have recently, there’s a greater possibility that I would be able to continue with a university course online which would still ensure I had exposure to French.

Finally, this is the only time I have the opportunity to spend a year in a foreign university so it feels like I should take advantage of that. If I want to, I can always work in France in the future, however this is not possible with university. There will many opportunities to make friends to practice French with, and having already experienced two years at a UK uni it won’t be as daunting as starting a completely new job. In a year that is already filled with uncertainty and unknown possibilities, it will be comforting to at least have some idea as to what it will entail, and I think doing a uni placement is the best way to do this.