This article debates academic mobility in Brazil over the past few years due to the growth in governmental initiatives to foster internationalization of higher education and student mobility. The goal is to handle the challenges faced by the international academic mobility program Science without Borders (SwB) to foster the evolution of science, technology and innovation in the country. To live to this prospect, SwB promotes foreign language learning as a pivotal element to the program’s success. Known as the most costly interest ever made in the country towards funding international mobility in higher education at the undergraduate level, Brazil is aspiring high in the program. Whether or not the SwB generation will accomplish the task to transform science, technology and innovation in the country in the years to come is one of the questions asked by the inquiry. Using analyses of qualitative data with undergraduate students, participants in the SwB program from 2011 to 2014, the article debates three important dimensions of the international mobility: (1) the contribution at educational and professional levels; (2) the contribution at a personal and subjective level; and (3) the importance of foreign language acquisition to wider education. The results bolster the argument that the SwB generation has evolved, as its most salient aspect, a differential self-perspective after undergoing mobility and underline the importance of a more inclusive, multilingual language policy for the country.