Why I Chose To Do My Student Exchange Programme In Peru

Introduction

Perhaps one of the most common questions that I got before and during my exchange was why I chose Peru as my host country for my student exchange program. Or for that matter, why I wanted to go to South America. As such, I thought it would be interesting to let you my reader enter my psyche for a bit.

If you are thinking about where to go on exchange, hopefully I can offer you some new perspectives to think about. While I did not do up a formal list or strictly make a logical choice, these were all factors that I was conscious about.

New World

To start things off, I was really keen to visit a region that I had not previously been to. I am definitely aware that living in a country is different from merely visiting it for a couple of days or a week, and that countries in a region can be really different from each other. Nonetheless, I do love the idea of having travelled to every continent in the world. Additionally, generally, countries share the most similarities with other nations that are in the same region as them. So by going to a new region, I figured I would open my horizon the most and get totally new viewpoints of the world.

Now, I am certainly not the most well-travelled individual, but this eliminated Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia & Oceania.

Distance

Secondly, I wanted to take the chance to go as far as possible, geographically and culturally. Simply put, if I am going to spend 5 to 6 months overseas, then it would make the most sense, value wise, to go to a place far away from Singapore. It is obviously easier to stomach an expensive international flight if I am staying in the country for months instead of weeks.

As such, with a heavy heart, I shifted Central Asia & Eastern Europe to a lower spot on my list.

Timeline

Next up, I only intended to do an exchange program that started in February or later. This would allow me to spend Chinese New Year with family and also finish off the last of my club commitments in my home university. Additionally, it would create a window over the winter break and a couple of months of the school semester to do an internship. So yes, my first practical consideration for exchange was its timeline.

This is why I did not consider countries such as Ecuador & Colombia in South America, as well as countries in Africa.

Opportunity

Another thing that factored a little was to choose a country that I may never have the opportunity to visit once I start work. In my time here in South America, the travelers who I have met thus far (less those from the neighbor countries) are:

- Retirees

- Between jobs

- Work at companies that allow unlimited accumulation of leave

- Honeymoon

So basically, there was a real chance that I would never be able to come to South America, while getting good value from the trip, for quite some time. When I say good value, I mean it in the sense that traveling for 60 plus hours (to and fro) only to travel around for 2 weeks does not really give good value for the price. Additionally, Singaporeans don’t normally place South America on their to visit places for vacations. Hence, it would have been really tough to find people to travel to SA while also matching work schedules.

With this in mind, I kind of eliminated Western Europe and North America.

Variety

Having more or less zoomed in on South America, I finally listed Peru as my top choice due to the variety in what it could offer. Peru is truly an excellent place to travel through, it has a bit of everything. There is the coast, mountains, desserts, jungles, art, archeology and FOOD! Additionally, as it is vertically located in the middle of the continent, I thought it would make a good jump point to the other countries in the region. It also helped that Peru has an average cost of living in Latin America.

Peru - my choice for spring exchange 2018

Conclusion

Some 3000 words later, I have tried my best to list and describe the decision process I made when choosing Peru as my exchange destination. Thus far, I have absolutely enjoyed my time here, which obviously personally validates how I chose this beautiful country. Obviously, everyone values things differently, and some of these factors may not apply to you, nonethless I hope that I have offered you additional food for thought when choosing where to go for a student exchange or even for an overseas internship.

Cheers!