How to prepare a semester abroad in Pakistan

just my way (as there are thousands of ways)

1.Decide that you want to go to Pakistan. It is a fascinating country with a lot of culture, warmhearted people and a lot of contradictions that you will never fully understand when you're just reading the news or deciding for a two weeks holiday trip to Lahore.

2.Decide where you want to go. The cities have got different faces and there are numerous good universities to be found (LUMS and Punjab-University in Lahore, Jamaia Karachi University or IBA in Karachi, International Islamic Univrsity and the Quaid-I-Azam University in Islamabad...just to mention some of them). Read about it, gather information.

3.Find a source to supply yourself with money. Either your bankaccount, which you have filled in advance through your own work or other means, a scholarship or your parents who support you.

4.Get in touch with professors at the university you favor. Ask all the questions you want to know (although most of them will be left unanswered). Don't be shy to phone them after a first mailcontact (keep in mind the different timezone in Pakistan).

5.Get your papers ready at your own homeuni (telling them you'll be away for half a year), tell your family about it (make the destinction of Pakistan and Afghanstan clear on the map and show that you are prepared in up to date knowledge about the country)

6. Don't expect to get credit points for your studies at home. Expect credit points for your personal experience on your life-account!

6. Be prepared that it will be different from all that you expected it to be. Leave your fear at home. You can pick it up later, when you come back (just joking, I know it'll be in your handluggage...).

6.Go