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Benefits of Exchanging

NSE provides students with affordable and practical opportunities to experience new and diverse settings in which to study and live. NSE has found that exchange within the U.S. and Canada can be just as exhilarating and culturally enriching as international study and one of the most significant experiences of a student's undergraduate education. NSE students access new academic options, immerse themselves in a different environment, search for graduate schools or future employment, acquire life skills, experience life from a different point of view, and expand their personal and educational perspectives.

NSE includes nearly 200 colleges and universities and has provided exchange opportunities to more than 90,000 students since its founding in 1968.

Students participate in NSE in order to:

  • experience personal growth
  • live in a different geographic area
  • become more independent and resourceful
  • broaden personal and educational perspectives
  • explore and appreciate new cultures
  • widen university boundaries
  • take courses not offered on their home campus
  • learn from different professors
  • access courses with different perspectives
  • explore new areas of study
  • investigate graduate or professional schools
  • look for future employment opportunities
  • break out of their comfort zones
  • acquire life skills

Participating in NSE can be exhilarating, culturally enriching, and one of the most significant experiences of your undergraduate education. The changes seen in student attitudes, understanding of other people in other settings, maturity, self-confidence, and decision-making are similar to the experiences of students who study internationally.

Impact of the Exchange Experience

For participating NSE students, the year on exchange is usually the most significant and enjoyable year in their education. Students return home with a fresh outlook on their education and better able to define academic and career objectives. It is also a year of dramatic personal growth and maturity, particularly for students who are not well-traveled or have lived most of their lives in the region where they are attending college. Students frequently return from exchange with more self-confidence and independence, greater decision-making skills, better able to take risks, and with a better defined view of their future.

It is not unusual for NSE students to consider, after returning to their home environment, participation in a study abroad program as well as graduate school and employment opportunities outside of their home region. Like study abroad, volunteerism, internships and research, NSE is an enhancement of your undergraduate program, demonstrating to graduate schools and future employers that you have gone beyond the expected.

"Being on exchange…forces you to explore, experiment, to change, grow, and develop." Eric Hansen, University of Massachusetts at Amherst to the University of Montana and Oregon State University.