• By Aniket Singh (Apple Inc, IIT Madras, Author of “Intern Abroad This Summer”)

We travel to see amazing sights, to taste new food and wines, to meet exciting people and to come back with amazing stories to entertain people with.What if you could also volunteer abroad as part of your travels? One thing about out our generation is that we lucky enough to travel for a hobby. Just 20 years ago, travelling abroad was reserved for the rich. When you volunteer abroad, you make travelling sustainable by giving something back. You give back to the community and , in the process, grow as a person.

Here are 3 reasons you should volunteer abroad:

1. Volunteering Gives You Perspective

If you’re not sure if you’re on the right path in your career and life , then a volunteer opportunity can be an amazing way to see what is important to you. You get to separate yourself from influences like family and friends and this gives you the solo time needed to work out what’s right for YOU and how you want to spend your life.

You don’t want the pressures from society to make you feel as though you only have one career choice. When you volunteering abroad, you get away from those pressures. It gives you time to think.

Also, during volunteering you surround yourself with people who don’t have much. That is when you realize that your possessions and your status symbols don’t matter. The locals in most of the volunteer locations don’t have the same standards of life and for them your expensive clothes and gadgets won’t matter. This is extremely liberating when you return back home. You start placeing less importance on things, and more importance on living. In the experiences of a volunteer, he gave away unused clothes, shoes and the like to charity shops when he returned from my a volunteer abroad trip .

2. You’ll Experience A New Culture Completely

Living in a new place is the best way to experiencing it. Sharing an accommodation with a local family or local rommates or living in a hostel will get you appreciate the lives and culture of those around you. YOu start living , experiencing and breathing a new.culture . You can never experience this cultural spread if you just visit as a tourist for a week or travel around in a tour bus.

When you see how the locals get around their lives and what kind of difficulties & challenges they face, your eyes and mind will open to a new world. You will appreciate that there are new and different ways of doing things around the world and several of your sacred cows or old ideals will be challenged. This makes you grow as a person.

3. You’ll Build a Network

You grow when you struggle and win. The thought of volunteering in a new country can make one anxious. People imagine themselves feeling alone. Away from home and its comforts, you are in an unfamiliar situations. But this challenge hides within it a lot of opportunity. In fact, during a volunteer opportunity you meet similarly minded individuals who are all setting out to do the same thing as you.

You all got something in common . You are all working on the same project for the betterment of the community. In such an environment you develop friendships that last you a lifetime. You connect and bond with people quickly during this time and make connections that will matter long way in the future.

In addition, you also get the opportunity to connect with locals. Locals welcome you with warmth, happiness and gratitude. You make connections with people who are so different from you, and this give you a completely different perspective. And you never know who comes to be of help 20 years down the line when you are looking for a new path in life.

4. You build a great resume

When you volunteer , you show that yiou have compassion, good ethics and an open mind. It also shows that you can think on your feet and take initiative. These skiils are very valued in the workplace and future employers will be impressed to see volunteering experience on your resume. There are several case studies which show that resumes with volunteering and internship experiences are more likely to get interview calls. Mentioning volunteering abroad on a personal statement is like a subtle way of writing “Hey, I care about the world and similarly, I would care about this job”.

About the author:

Aniket Singh works for Apple Inc. in California, United States. He is also the author of “Intern Abroad This Summer”.

Aniket holds a BTech degree in Electrical Engineering from the IIT, Madras, Chennai, and a Master’s degree in Wireless Systems from Politecnico Di Torino in Torino, Italy. He has interned at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom and Ecole Polytechnic Federale de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland during this studies.

Visit him at www.aniketsingh.com

Check out his book at www.internabroadthissummer.com