What can students at the Graduate Institute hope to gain from participating in an exchange?

Participating in an exchange has many benefits!

To begin with, the variety of destinations available offers the possibility of experiencing life upfront in many different countries across the globe. Students are thus gaining exposure to new cultures and environments within the framework of their studies.

They can also use this opportunity to improve their language skills.

On the academic side, students are immersed into a new academic environment, which provides alternative perspectives on numerous topics, and in some cases, access to additional resources related to their research work.

Above all, however, I feel that students benefit immensely from a personal development perspective – participating in an exchange for one semester, with the discoveries and challenges that this entails, undoubtedly enhances their adaptability skills and capacity to deal with future endeavours.

Are exchanges open to all students? How can they apply?

Students from all programmes can participate in the exchange programme. MA level students can go on exchange during their third semester, while PhD level students can go on exchange after successfully defending the preliminary thesis dissertation (MPT).

It is important for students to be in good academic standing, as a minimum 5.0 GPA is required to be eligible.

Applications are open during the month of January for the following academic year. The internal selection requires students to indicate their preferences (2 choices) and provide details of their motivation.

Application information for an outgoing exchange is available on the website.

Have the exchange formats changed due to COVID health and safety regulations?

It goes without saying that the pandemic has had a huge effect on the exchange programme.

As an alternative to cancelling the programme, some of our partners put in place an online exchange, which enabled students to benefit from the academic resources of their institutions – a small number of students chose to avail of this opportunity.

Fortunately, the majority of nominated students this year have been able to pursue the exchange on-site despite certain restrictions.

As the situation continues to improve, we are working together with our partners in the expectation that things will be very close to normal for the 2022-23 participants.

What is some advice you would give to someone hoping to do an exchange while studying at the Institute?

Begin to review the opportunities as early as possible in order to have a good idea of how the courses and resources at the partner institution will fit in to your study plan at the Institute.

Carefully study the institutions and destinations to determine which options are most likely to meet your personal, academic and career goals.

Keep in mind the minimum GPA requirement as well as the fact that places are limited (generally 2 per partner) and some institutions are far more competitive than others.

Join our information session on 11 November to learn more about the process.

Remember that going on an exchange for one semester can be intense and involve a lot of organisation and administration, so being well informed and preparing early will make things easier.