We recommend that you have a complete physical, eye and dental examination 2-3 months prior to your program abroad. Check with your doctor (and with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control) regarding any inoculations you might need to protect yourself from infectious diseases endemic in the countries you will visit.
- Check with the U.S. Department of State Website: The first thing mother and father and learners should do before going overseas anywhere is to examine with the U.S. Division of Region’s Worldwide Journey Details website. There you will find hyperlinks to Consular Details Linens and Nation Qualifications Notices, which offer important info about your variety country.
- Travel Advisories, Alerts and Warnings: The Condition Division Issues both journey advisories, signals and journey signals. It produces journey signals to distribute details about short-term circumstances, generally within a particular nation, that cause upcoming risks to the protection of U.S. people. The agency’s journey signals inform U.S. people about long-term circumstances that make a nation volatile or dangerous. The U.S. Centers for Illness Control Issues journey wellness signals to aware people to extensive, serious breakouts of an illness or to other public wellness issues. Linfield Higher education does not have a cover policy with respect to reducing journey for students and staff depending on Condition Division signals, advisories and even signals. We evaluate each scenario on a situation by situation basis, collecting as much details as possible from staff at our partner organizations, US Consulates on site, the Offshore Security Advisory Authorities and other resources considered appropriate and useful by Linfield. A decision to terminate or proceed with a particular program in the face of a Condition Division statement of any kind will be made by Higher education authorities centered on a thorough evaluation of the scenario at hand and comprehensive collecting of details from all government and non-governmental resources.
- Health and Insurance Coverage: Take into serious concern your own wellness Issues when implementing for a research overseas system, and make all your necessary wellness details available to the program’s directors so they can assist you with any special needs, or counsel you on the threats you might face. When finishing the wellness form, be honest and advance. Not exposing details about your wellness or drugs you are taking can lead to a termination from the system when such details is introduced ahead later in the process. Study overseas contains psychological and physical difficulties for learners.
- What to Know about Your Country: Learn all you can about the safe practice Issues of the nations you plan to visit. This contains studying about the social and governmental environment of those nations, as well as learning about how others perspective people from your nation, competition, cultural team, religious beliefs, sex and sex-related alignment.
- Laws and Codes of Conduct: To make sure of both the rules of your host organization and nation, and the local laws and regulations and traditions of the cities and places you will be viewing. Understand that you will not only have to comply with the judicial system of the nation you will be viewing, but also follow the codes of perform required of program members.
- Diseases and Inoculations: Discover out about the contagious illnesses native to the island in nations to which you will be journeying, and get the appropriate photos, and take the appropriate medicines with you if your physician believes it’s necessary. Discover out about any prospective side-effects of photos and drugs that you may take.
- You Drink the Water? Find out if water is safe to drink in the countries to which you will be traveling. Make sure water bottles come sealed when you buy them. Remember that ice can also be unsafe, as well as the water you use to brush your teeth.
- Physical Health and Insurance Coverage: All learners on Linfield’s research overseas applications (January Phrase and semester/year abroad) will have insurance plan protection through a Higher education accepted plan/vendor. The cost of the protection, during the length of the system, will be involved in your system fee. This plan includes healthcare needs while you are overseas as well as necessary evacuation (for healthcare or other contingencies as identified by the plan). You should also bear in mind that insurance plan protection, if any, is extremely restricted for anyone harmed while interesting in any “extreme sports” (any kind of risky fitness effort such as sailing, high cliff snorkeling, zip-line driving, etc., more generally described to consist of any action which is not part of the college’s present fitness program). Accordingly, you should bear in mind that Linfield does not excuse such actions and highly attempts anyone from interesting in any way of excessive activities while playing a Linfield-administered system overseas.
- Prescriptions: Get a doctor’s signed prescription for any medication you have to take abroad. Some prescriptions may need to be translated if you wish to fill them abroad. Include your glasses or contact lens prescription. Bring an extra pair of glasses and contact lens kit is and paraphernalia.
- Fitness and Exercise: Try to get fit in the time you have before departing overseas. A healthy body can help you fight off illnesses and recover faster if you do get sick. Also, try to stay fit and exercise while abroad, even Although it may be harder to follow a structured workout routine.
- Walking: Get a good pair of comfortable walking shoes. Without access to a car or public transportation abroad, you may have to do quite a bit of walking. Break in your shoes before you go.
- Alcohol and Drugs: Use and abuse of alcohol and drugs abroad can increase the risk of accident and injury. Many study abroad accidents and injury are related to the use and abuse of alcohol and drugs. Violating drug laws abroad may result in very serious consequences. In some countries, being found guilty of violating drug laws can result in consequences as serious as the death penalty.
- Culture Shock: This is a much under-estimated and often ignored product among learners journeying overseas to research. Individuals often follow the position that it will never occur to them. It is actual and it has “afflicted” even the most professional visitor. Take it seriously, identify the signs and be advised of what you can do to get over lifestyle surprise. And, look out for each other. This is commonly mentioned in your pre-departure alignment material….please evaluation it.
- Emergency Contacts: Keep the staff at IPO and an emergency contact back home well informed of your whereabouts and activities and provide these people with copies of your important travel documents (i.e. passport, visa, plane itineraries, E-tickers, and prescriptions). And, let people around you (host university staff, homestay family hosts) know of your whereabouts during semester breaks and other long weekends, if you are traveling. Make sure they have your hotel and other travel information.
- Fire Safety While Abroad: One threat that is often overlooked is the risk of fires in countries where smoke detectors and fire escapes are not readily available. We strongly encourage all study abroad students to pack one battery-operated smoke alarm and place it in their room while abroad (whether in a homestay room or dorm room). Place the detector high, without having to damage the wall with a separate hook.
- Air Travel: When you travel by air, drink a lot of non-alcoholic fluids, stay away from caffeine, eat light, and stretch often to avoid jetlag. Many airlines are now required to show an in-flight video of stretching exercises you can do on the plane in order to avoid the potential formation of blood clots, which can be caused by cabin pressure and sitting for long periods of time.
- Transportation:Accidents involving in-country travel, whether by air, bus, train, taxi, car, etc., are a major cause of injury to students abroad. It is important to understand what the safe modes of travel are abroad.
- Bus: Since it is the least expensive, travel by bus is often a very popular choice for students. Some may prefer to take the train instead. But, be cautious in making these selections. Your homestay hosts will know more about these kinds of transportation modes and can offer good advice in making informed choices.
- Train/Metro: You may want to avoid traveling by train alone at night, particularly in more urban areas. In major cities especially, you will find the metro system (where available) to be the most convenient form of transportation to move about the city, alAlthough beware of pickpockets. Don’t fall asleep on trains, buses or metro, especially if you have personal belongings (suitcases, backpacks, etc) around you.
- Air: Air travel can be a good value. If you know of discount airfare websites, you can find tickets at reasonable prices.
- Cars (Driving): Linfield College strongly discourages you from driving while you are on a study abroad program (regardless of whether it is Jan term, semester or year abroad and regardless of whether you are familiar with the area). In countries where driving laws are significantly different than in the U.S., such as the UK or Hong Kong, Australia, Ireland where drivers travel on the left side of the road or in other countries where you would experience a completely different driving environment, driving will become more of a challenge and insurance coverage can be prohibitive….so, don’t do it!
Health Concerns
• Know the wellness hazards in the area of your journey or offshore career. Malaria, yellow-colored high temperature, cholera, the affect, typhoid fever—you may have read about these illnesses in your secondary school history guides, but the truth is that they are still frequent in certain places around the globe. Without the proper vaccines, you may put yourself at risk of acquiring these illnesses, if you are allowed to get into the nation at all. The Center for Sickness Control, an organization of the U.S. Division of Health insurance policy Human Services, can offer you with present details on the wellness hazards for the area around the globe to which you are journeying. Their website (http://www.cdc.gov) contains general details about avoiding and dealing with journey illness (including the all-too-familiar traveler’s diarrhea) and particular details about flu and disease breakouts. The website also contains wellness details reviews for particular geographical places, such as present details on needed immunizations and vaccines, wellness safety measures, disease breakouts, etc.
• Verify your insurance policy protection. What will you do if, despite your best safety measures, you become fed up or harmed abroad? Not all U.S. insurance policy providers will protect you while you are journeying offshore. Many restrict the amount of protection or will not protect you while you are involved in experience journey (whitewater tubing, skydiving, etc.). Urgent evacuation or long-term medical center remains can be expensive. Check with your insurance policy provider to confirm protection and purchase additional insurance policy protection, if necessary. There are several insurance policy providers that are dedicated to offshore holiday insurance policy and many permit you to buy protection for as short as a month.
• Visit your physician. You may be needed to have vaccines in order to obtain a charge to certain nations. While you are viewing your physician, it is a wise decision to have a complete physical, particularly if you are preparing to do a lot of outdoor actions or have had wellness issues in the past. You should demand replacements of any drugs you are taking—enough to last your entire trip. Make sure your medicines are well marked and in their unique bins, to prevent any issues with traditions authorities. If you are taking any drugs containing drugs, you should also carry a physician’s note (translated, if necessary) proclaiming to your need to take the drugs. If you have any particular healthcare conditions (allergies, diabetic issues, etc.), you may want to get a healthcare recognition bracelets that conveys your healthcare situation.
• Visit your dental professional. The last thing you want to have to deal with is a tooth pain or affected knowledge teeth offshore. Have any dental work you may need done before you go.
• Inform yourself of regional healthcare features. In addition to understanding what vaccines are needed and how to keep healthy offshore, it is also important to know what to do and where to go if you should become and tired offshore. The regional U.S. Consular Office can usually suggest regional English-speaking physicians, so take those figures with you. You may also want to take with you a record of journey treatment centers, English-speaking physicians and know the emergency healthcare figures, if they are available, in your location nation. Several globally journey wellness companies are available, and you can identify treatment centers on their website before you go. Both the International Community of Travel Medication and the American Community of Exotic Medication and Cleanliness offer a record of English-speaking physicians and journey treatment centers globally on their web sites. Road to Health (http://www.highwaytohealth.com) also details emergency figures, regional medical centers and drug stores on it is website.
• Bring a healthcare kit. A basic healthcare kit containing bandages, pain killers, germ killing better, pest resilient, anti-diarrhea medicine, malaria pills (if necessary) may be useful when journeying off the defeated path.
• Bring contraceptives. Std’s and AIDS are everywhere. If you are if perhaps you are, or are preparing to become if perhaps you are, carry your own protection.
• Be aware of jet lag. Excessive jet lag can clean you out for the first few times of your sojourn offshore. To reduce the effect of jet lag, do the following: eat gently, stay hydrated and prevent caffeinated drinks and alcohol for several times before your flight; try to sleep on your flight; and, upon appearance, stay effective and go to bed when the residents do. This will help your body modify it is inner time to regional time.
• “Boil it, prepare it, remove it or forget it.” As much as you may want to try all the regional special treats, go slowly at first until your abdomen is able to modify to new foods. If you are uncertain, consume h2o in bottles or fizzy drinks (without ice), prevent raw fish, egg, various meats and un-peeled vegetables and only eat milk products that have been pasteurized and under refrigeration. If you have food limitations, for wellness, spiritual or personal reasons, learn how to connect that in the regional language before you go.