How to Put Study Abroad on a Resume (With Examples)

To put study abroad on a resume, list it in your Education section under your home university, with the host university or programme name, city and country, dates and the courses you took. If you worked, interned, volunteered or did research abroad, add that to an Experience section as well, and put the languages you used in Skills. University career centres recommend these three places, and listing the same semester in two of them is acceptable.

This guide is a step by step method built from the guidance that three university career offices publish: Hendrix College, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Illinois Chicago. It also covers the cases those guides skip: summer programmes, a full degree taken abroad, and CVs for jobs in the UK and Europe. We checked these sources in October 2026.

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Photo: Léna, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Does study abroad look good on a resume?

Yes, when you show what you did and learned there. Hendrix College's career office says many students forget to list study abroad at all, and that employers and graduate schools read it as a sign of intercultural competence. The same guide warns that a line with only the host city is not enough: "you must make the connection to the actual skills you gained."

A semester abroad on its own does not tell a recruiter much. Courses taken in another language, a research project, an internship or a part-time job abroad does. The steps below turn the experience into lines a reader can check.

Where does study abroad go on a resume?

There are three places, and you can use more than one:

Education. This is the default for coursework. Put it under your home degree, either as a bullet point or as its own line with the host university's name. WashU asks for the host institution, the city and country, the dates of enrolment and the coursework or programme of study.
Experience. Use this for anything you did beyond classes: jobs, internships, projects, clinical observations, community placements or independent research. UIC suggests a sub-section called "International Experience", "Cross-Cultural Experience" or "Global Experience" if you have more than one entry.
Skills. List the languages you used, with an honest level, and any skills you can prove from the experience.

Hendrix's guide says directly that you "may also decide to list study abroad twice, under both Education and Experience". This works when the Education line covers the courses and the Experience line covers a project or job.

How to put study abroad on a resume, step by step

Choose the heading. Use the Education section for a semester or year of coursework. Add an Experience entry only if you did something that would count as experience at home.
Write the header line. Give the host university or programme name, then the city, the country and the term: "Study Abroad, [Host University], [City], [Country] – [Term Year]". If you went with a third-party programme, name the programme and the university where you took classes.
Add two to four bullet points. Name the courses that relate to the job, the language of instruction and any project. UIC's guide says every bullet in the experience section should begin with an action verb.
Turn the skills into evidence. Hendrix lists outcomes such as adapting to new environments, communicating despite barriers, managing money in different currencies and handling ambiguity. Do not paste these words into the resume as they are. Pick one or two and attach them to something you did.
Add languages to Skills. State a level for each language (see the language section below).
Check the dates and grades. The term on the resume should match the host university's transcript. If you report a grade from abroad, give it on the host university's scale (more on that below).

Study abroad on a resume: examples

These templates follow the layout of Hendrix College's sample resume. Replace the brackets with your own details. Do not add anything you could not explain in an interview.

Education entry

[Home University], [City, Country] – Bachelor of [Subject], expected [Month Year]
Study Abroad, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain – [Spring Year]
Completed [number] courses in [subject] taught in Spanish
[Research project or seminar paper title and one-line result]

Experience entry

Research Assistant (study abroad project), [Host University], [City, Country] – [Term Year]
Designed a questionnaire and interviewed [number] local residents in [language]
Analysed the responses and wrote the final report in [language]

Skills line

Languages: Spanish (B2, CEFR), Italian (A2, CEFR), English (fluent)

The Hendrix sample uses the same pattern. Its Education entry lists the host university, coursework in the host language and an independent research project. Its Experience entry shows the research separately, with the interviews and data analysis.

How to describe language skills from study abroad

Give each language a level that a reader can check. UIC suggests words such as native, bilingual, fluent, advanced, intermediate or novice, and says what you can do with the language: conversation, reading or writing. WashU's guide uses three levels: basic, intermediate and fluent.

For jobs in Europe, the CEFR scale is the common reference. Europass, the European Commission's CV service, groups its six levels into Basic user (A1, A2), Independent user (B1, B2) and Proficient user (C1, C2). If you took a placement test or a language course at the host university, the result is often already on this scale. Use that level instead of your own estimate.

Summer programmes, short courses and exchange semesters

A semester or year exchange goes in Education, as described above. A summer programme or short course can go there too if it gave you credit. Put the programme name and the term in the header line, and say what it covered in one bullet point. A trip without courses, credit or work fits better under Activities, or you can leave it off the resume. On a one-page resume, keep a short programme to a single line unless it relates directly to the job.

If you studied at an EduRank-ranked university in Spain or elsewhere, write its full official name. Do not add ranking claims to the resume line.

If your whole degree is from abroad

Many international students did not take a study abroad semester. Their whole degree is from another country. In that case the foreign degree is the main Education entry, not a "study abroad" line:

Write the degree title as the university awards it, in the original language if that is how it appears on the diploma, followed by a plain English equivalent in brackets if the title is unclear to a foreign reader.
Give your grade on the original scale, with the scale. A bare number means little abroad, so write the maximum next to it, exactly as your transcript shows it. For a UK degree, the class name (First, 2:1, 2:2) is enough; our UK grading system guide explains the classes. If an employer asks for a US-style GPA, read what counts as a good GPA by country before you convert anything, and say that the figure is a conversion.
Follow the local CV rules of the country where you apply. The UK government's National Careers Service says a CV should not include your age, date of birth, marital status or nationality. It asks for your name, phone number, email and a link to a profile such as LinkedIn. For applications in the EU, the free Europass CV from the European Commission is a format employers and universities know. You can create it in 31 languages.

Using study abroad in cover letters, LinkedIn and interviews

The resume line is short. You explain the experience in your cover letter and interviews. UIC's career guide recommends two things for cover letters and personal statements. Explain how study abroad led you to the job or programme you are applying for, and link the skills from abroad to the requirements in the job posting.

For interviews, UIC suggests preparing stories with the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) or the SBO method (Situation, Behavior, Outcome). It also lists two questions study abroad students often hear: why you chose that programme or location, and which skills you developed abroad. WashU gives the same advice: prepare specific examples that show your skills. On LinkedIn, add the host university as a separate Education entry with the same dates and courses as the resume, so the two match.

Checklist before you send it: host university or programme name, city, country and term in one header line; 2–4 bullets with action verbs; at least one concrete result (project, report, job); languages with a level; grades on their original scale; dates that match the transcript. Planning your next step abroad? Check your eligibility.

Next step

If you are still choosing where to spend a semester or a full degree abroad, compare host universities on the University of Barcelona and University of Bologna pages, and other options in the cards below. When you have a shortlist, our how to apply guide explains the application steps.

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