There is a wide variety of options for studying, working or volunteering abroad. In general, but especially if you are pursuing your own abroad experience (rather than a faculty-led trip, for instance), the Study Abroad program in MSU's Office of International Programs is your main resource.

Study Abroad offers drop-in advising sessions where you can learn about different opportunities and bounce ideas around. Study Abroad also maintains a website that lays out the steps for going abroad and provides answers to common questions about things like cost.

In general, there are a few different ways to approach the abroad experience:

Individual experience

In this option, you work through MSU's Study Abroad program to enroll in a university, internship or a service trip abroad. This option provides the most flexibility in terms of destination and activity, but you engage in it by yourself or perhaps with a friend or two.

An example would be studying engineering at Kempten University in Germany for one or two semesters, but the sky is the limit.

The Study Abroad program offers a portal for searching academic study abroad opportunities. In the "subjects available" field, you can search for engineering options.

The Study Abroad office will be able to point you to other resources for finding internship and service opportunities.

Faculty-led trips

In this option, you join a group of your peers on a trip that involves a combination of academic study, service and/or travel. For example, in the summer of 2016 a group of more than 20 students travelled to Peru as part of the EGEN 310 multidisciplinary engineering class.

These trips are often done in the summer or during breaks, so they are a shorter time commitment, typically 2-6 weeks in length.

Most upcoming faculty-led trips are posted to a webpage on the Study Abroad site, but you can also learn about potential trips from talking to the international advisor in your department.

Service trips

MSU's chapter of Engineers Without Borders is an active organization that regularly organizes trips to Kenya, primarily related to development of water and sanitation infrastructure. Engineers for a Sustainable World also hosts a catalogue of international projects, and MSU's Study Abroad program can help with finding other opportunities.