HOW TO TRAVEL (FOR FREE) AS A UNI STUDENT

Hi everyone! So those of you who clicked this this post, you might be intrigued because you are a uni student and you love travelling. As a uni student, it might be a little bit hard for you to travel because you have a little amount of time and you don't have billion dollar to spend to travel. But guess what? It is actually possible to travel for free while studying. So without further due, here are 4 possible ways (that I can think of atm) to travel for free as a uni student:

1. Join national/ international competitions

Not only  that it's good for your cv, but it's actually hella fun to get sponsored to compete and travel. There are various national and international competitions out there if you really try to look. I'm sure that your university often advertise and encourage you to join national and international competitions, for both academic and non-academic competitions. For example: moot court, horse riding, archery, soccer, debate, Model United Nations (MUN), basketball - the list goes on. If they don't, try to google it! During my study in law school, I've done six different mooting competitions (Jessup, Asia Cup, WTO, Willem C. Vis, IHL National Round, IHL International Round), one MUN (TEIMUN), and one legal writing competition (JGLR). These competitions have brought me to Jakarta (Indonesia), Semarang (Indonesia), The Hague (Netherlands), Ahmedabad (India), Hong Kong (PRC), Paris (France), Budapest (Hungary), Austria (Vienna), etc. No lie, fund raising can be tough sometimes, but it's totally doable. Make a bad ass proposal, send them to potential sponsors (your faculty, your university, ministry of education, law firms/ companies, etc), make a kick ass presentation, and don't forget to follow up to ask the progress of your proposal. Nothing comes easy in life so if you want free stuffs, you gotta work for it ;). Btw, ofc the main objective is to compete, not to travel. But after the competition is done and dusted, it doesn't hurt to play tourist and enjoy yourself after your long hard work in preparing the competition. 

2. Study abroad

Another way to travel for free is to get scholarship to study abroad. There are quite a few options for you, starting from short course, exchange student, to double degree program. Just bear in mind that probably not all of the study abroad programs provided at your home university is free, so get informed and look for scholarships! You can start by asking your faculty about any available study abroad programs and scholarships. If they don't have any, you can check out office of international affairs' website at your university or simply come to their office to get information. In general, there are plenty of opportunities for you to get sponsored to study abroad. One of the ways to find information is to....google it! In my experience, I got funded by the Australian Government through the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) Scholarship to study in Adelaide, Australia. I got the information from the office of international affairs of my university by directly going to their office and ask them about the available programs at that time. Beside ISEP, there are plenty more options like Erasmus, AIESEC, JASSO, etc. Most of the scholarships usually require you to have good GPA and good command in English or other foreign language (depend on your country destination). So to make a fair trade, get yourself prepared by studying hard and get a good score on your TOEFL/ IELTS test.

3. Do (paid) internship

If you want to do an internship, you might as well do it in the city you always wanted to visit. Internship doesn't have to be stressful, it can be a wonderful experience too. Essentially, internship is a media to introduce you to the working environment and to implement what you have learned from the classroom. But you will probably be working five days a week, from 9 to 5 (unless you're interning in a top tier corporate law firm). Take this opportunity to travel somewhere new! Use your lunch break to try out the best food around your office, or use your weekend to travel to other cities. However, you need to take into account that not all internships are paid (sad face). But the good news is.. there are still plenty of paid internships out there! When I was still studying, I did an internship in a law firm in Kuala Lumpur, and they paid their interns (yay)! How do I know about this stuff? *Drum rolls* G-O-O-G-L-E! Yeah, I literally googled everything. They might not cover your travel cost, but getting paid every month for you to live abroad is already something!

4. Dig your star talent

If competing/ studying/ interning is not your thing, you can dig the creative side of you. Start a band, write a song, learn how to DJ, or maybe start a youtube channel and be a social media influencer! Once the world knows your name, you'll get invited to places to perform and you'll even get paid for it! No shame, just be yourself. I know it might be hard to start - but hey, if you really do have a talent, just embrace it! F*ck what other people say. In the end it's you who'll live your life. I know a lot of people who actually managed to get famous because of their talents (or even beauty) while still studying. They got paid to promote stuffs or to attend events in other cities and even abroad. I've never done this before but seeing those people who managed to do this, I think it is very doable.

Those are the four possible ways to travel for free as a student that popped into my head right now. Of course this list is not exhaustive in nature. I'll add more stuffs if I can think of other ways to travel for free. Choose wisely and good luck!

-ONM