Past Study Abroad Students: Rave about your program/city here!

Applying to College
1

<p>I just got an idea. You know all those big CEA database threads that people make? I figure we could do one about study abroad so that people who come with NO idea about where they want to study can come and read about some good experiences that people have had</p>

<p>If you've gone with an outside program, try to include some details about </p>

<p>Program Name/Company (if applicable):
City, Country:
Year:
Duration:
Education Options:
Comments about education:
Housing options:
Comments about housing:
Program sponsored activities/excursions:
Comments:
Comments about host city:
General comments:</p>

<p>I'll start.
Program Name/Company (if applicable): CEA - Cultural Experience Abroad, Study</a> Abroad Programs for US & Canadian University and College Students @GoWithCEA.com
City, Country: Sevilla, Spain
Year: Fall 2008
Duration: semester</p>

<p>Education Options: Classes at CEA Global Campus (in English except the Spanish Language courses), Universidad de Pablo Olavide (in English/Spanish), Universidad de Sevilla (all classes in Spanish)</p>

<p>Comments about education: I took all my classes at the University of Seville, except for a 3-week intensive language course at the CEA Global Campus (which they share with a Spanish language institute). All of my classes were in Philology or Literature, so they helped me get a very good grasp of the language here. Mine were not terribly difficult (except for the fact that they were all in Spanish), but I'm told that some of the content courses in art, government, or other lit classes were more intensive. The University is located in the old Royal Tabacco factory made famous by the opera Carmen. All of my classes are with foreign students and are tailored towards foreigners (classes with Spaniards were not an option for me because their finals are not until February...but it is an option). All of my classes will transfer to my home university as Pass/Fail, even if I get real grades here.</p>

<p>A lot of people are taking other culture classes at UPO and CEA's global campus, but there are also options for Business majors to take finance and international business courses at UPO and CEA. Most people I know have been pretty satisfied with the variety of course options and the content covered in class.</p>

<p>Housing options: Apartment, Homestay, Casa Universitaria
Comments about housing: I stayed in a casa universitaria, and it has been AMAZING. What it consists of is anywhere from 5-8 foreigners living in a house or apartment, where the owner may or may not live. Our se</p>

2

<p>Might add things like cost to that list...since that's going to be one thing that makes or breaks a program (esp. w/ the economy as it is)</p>

3

<p>I agree, cost is one of the biggest deciding factors for me with studying abroad, which I want to do very much</p>

4

<p>Ah, right. CEA's program to Sevilla costs $10,995 for the semester. I spent about $1080 on my round trip flight from Dulles to Sevilla, and in terms of spending, I probably spent about $2,500 in personal expenses (including traveling, a guitar, gifts, clothes, eating out, etc.)</p>

<p>In terms of costs, my friends who go to private universities or are OOS students at public universities generally say they've saved a good amount of money by studying abroad.</p>

5

<p>Were your costs covered by your scholarship (your Banner-Key, right?)?</p>

6

<p>My Banneker/Key from UMD left me about $1,000 short of covering the program costs. I normally receive an additional $1,500 a semester from the Maryland Higher Education Commission, but they said they couldn't award it while I was abroad and are just going to add it to my Spring semester award...so if you count that, my entire program costs were covered, and I only needed to pay for my flight and personal expenses, which I paid for with money I earned from the summer.</p>

7

<p>In my original post, I also definitely meant to say CC database thread by the way.</p>

<p>And all but about $1000 of the program cost was covered by my Banneker/Key scholarship. I normally also receive an extra $1500 from the Md Higher Ed Commission, but they told me they couldn't award the money while I was abroad and that I would receive the money next semester...so in that sense, my costs were completely covered, and I only needed to pay for my flight and personal expenses.</p>

8

<p>Program Name/Company (if applicable): EducAsian: Three Cities Asia
City, Country: Shanghai, Beijing, Hongkong
Year: 2007
Duration: One semester, then remained in Shanghai by myself for another semester
Education Options: Peking Normal University...and a couple local colleges
Comments about education: It was okay, the campuses were all beautiful. The instruction itself was pretty much all fluff and not applicable for my situation.
Housing options: Apartment in Beijing, college dorms in Shanghai, Hotel in HongKong - dorms in Shanghai (second trip)
Comments about housing: The rooms were massive and fairly nice.
Program sponsored activities/excursions: Too many to recall, The Forbidden Palace, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall...there were at least 35 all together. A different excursion three times a week.
Comments: Not a fan of Beijing locals. The tour guide (Peter) reminded me of a pedophile...he was so creepy.
Comments about host city: Shanghai soup dumplings...I miss them.
General comments: A worthwhile once in a lifetime experience, I would consider doing it again.</p>

9

<p>My daughter did this a couple of years ago.</p>

<p>Program Name/Company (if applicable): **International Honors Program, Cities of the 21st Century
**City, Country: New York, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangalore (India)
Year: **
*Duration: **One semester
**Education Options: * Four seminar format courses taught by travelling faculty with heavy field work and local government, business, and NGO participation. Four courses covered aspects of globalization and urban development -- ecology, politics, sociology, etc.
**Comments about education: The academics were quite demanding. Daughter felt that the style of teaching, group fieldwork, student presentations, and expectation was similar to what she was used to at Swarthmore, although the professors were not as skilled. She found the overall travel experience to be so demanding that she was not willing to put as much effort into the academics as she did at Swarthmore. Still, by study abroad standards, excellent academics with total immersion in issues of globalization and megacities.
Housing options: **Homestays in Buenos Aires, Beijing, and Bangalore. University guest dorm in Shanghai.
**Comments about housing: Homestays vary depending on the family. Locations were convenient in Buenos Aires and Beijing. Interesting autorickshaw commute in Bangalore. Rewarding relationships with host families. Homestays are totally immersive and demanding.
Program sponsored activities/excursions: Spent five weeks in each city. Typical sight seeing excursions, sometimes organized, sometimes ad hoc. Education field work included trips to NYC planning department, the UN, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, visting neighborhoods, studying recyling and shanty towns in Buenos Aires, visit to meat packing neighborhood. Visit to Factory 798 art district in Beijing with tour led by founder. Tour of Nike factory. Tour of commerical business district. Neighborhood case study interviews in Beijing neighborhoods. Weekend in New Socialist Countryside rural village. Tours of Pudong district in Shanghai by Shanghai development office. Case study of new infrastructure corridor in Bangalore, sleeping in barns on silk worm farms. Constant field trips and seminars by government, NGO, and business leaders in each city. Impromptu vacation weeks to Andes mountains for horseback riding, winery tours, and paragliding and to stunning beach resort in India staying in bamboo huts eating fresh caught fish at restaurants on the cliffs. The students come home as weary, but experienced, confident world travellers.
*Comments: * A totally unique, life-changing comparative study opportunity. When else are you going to visit five megacities on four continents, back to back to back in four months? Culture shock from New York to Buenos Aires to China to India. Learning how to read large cities and neighborhoods. After two weeks in the final city (Bangalore), m daughter said she even started to see order in the chaos of Indian streets. Very demanding program with intense travel, repeated culture shocks, very full days every day, plus the need to be "on" 24/7 with the homestays and weekend trips. Highly, highly recommended for an adventuresome self-starter student. There's a sister program focused on health care in multiple countries. The people who do these trips remain very close for many years, if not forever because the experience is so unique. There's a very active alumni network
**Cost: **about the same as a semester at the most expensive private colleges. Students on the trip tend to come from the top colleges. Daughter's trip had Swarthmore, Williams, Vassar, Wellesley, Barnard, UPenn, Harvard, Berkeley, a several others.</p>

10

<p>I studied abroad once in the year after high school (GAP year) and once during uni, so I have to fill this out twice. I highly recommend both places and programs!</p>

<p>Program Name/Company (if applicable): Rotary International
City, Country: Lüdenscheid, Germany (near Cologne and Dortmund)
Year: 2005-6
Duration: 11 months
Education Options: Rotary is a high school program and you have to be 19 and younger when you apply, I believe. So I attended the Gymnasium. In other countries, you'd likely be in their high school equivalent.
Comments about education: Sooo different from American education. I didn't get any grades because I had already graduated and had yet to start uni, so I didn't have to do so much work, but if you are getting grades, they're pretty lenient on you. I took most of the exams anyway and at least tried doing homework. It helps to learn the language if you do that.
Housing options: Host families! They recommend having 3 families. I had two and then was forced to move in with a friend because the 2nd got sour. It was still fun!
Comments about housing: You're living with families, so you learn more about the language and culture. I much prefer this to any dormitory living. It is hard living with a completely new family who may have different rules and outlooks and things, but it's worth it.
Program sponsored activities/excursions: The Rotary club that hosted me invited me to their weekly meeting and gave me food and invited me to their events, which were fun and full of funny old men (women aren't yet invited into all Rotary clubs in Germany). But the Rotex (former exchange students) had a bunch of get togethers with all the exchange students in that area (well over 60 people from different countries). I went on a Germany tour and a Europe tour, for example, which I had to pay for, but some were sponsered by their clubs.
Comments: DO IT. It might be too late for some of you, but Rotary also has university scholarships available. I recommend Rotary definitely. They were all so nice and helpful and it's really a fantastic experience.
Comments about host city: I've visited the city a few times since I was gone. You can't request a city with Rotary, you just get placed there. Most are within 30 minutes of a bigger city.
General comments: DO IT!
COST: All I had to pay for was the plane ticket, passport, visa, and my own personal expenses. Housing was paid, schooling didn't cost anything, food was paid by my family. It was great.</p>

11

<p>So here's my second one:</p>

<p>Program Name/Company (if applicable): CIEE
City, Country: Warsaw, Poland
Year: 2007-8
Duration: 9 months
Education Options: University level. I think they might have high school also. I was at SGH (warsaw school of economics) which is one of the most prestigious unis in Poland. There are at least two other universities in Warsaw, but that's the one CIEE goes to.
Comments about education: Studying abroad is not difficult, academically. In this instance, we had 5 classes, one which was Polish. You basically listen to lectures all semester -- I had to do two presentations also -- and then have an essay or exam at the end. Only one class had an exam. All of the others were essays, where you really didn't have to attend class to do well. SGH offers classes in Polish, English, German, and French, so I also took some classes in English and German while I was there.
Housing options: Dormitory.
Comments about housing: It was like any other dorm. There were three dorm options. Sabinki was the loud party dorm. Hermes (mine) was the half study half party dorm. And then one other was fully academic. You are roommates with someone else in the program, but are surrounded by Polish students (and some Ukrainian or Russian students also).
Program sponsored activities/excursions: Took a trip to Krakow (Cracow?) and Gdansk (Danzig?). They also give you 800zl. (around $200) in free travel within Poland where you can take a train and get reimbursed (a train to Gdansk cost about 80zl. one way).
Comments: I thought the program was really unorganized, at least in Warsaw. It was really frustrating sometimes. Both semesters, the grades were supposed to come in 4 months after the program ended and the first semester, mine apparently got lost and came in 6-7 months after the program ended and the second semester there was a typo and I had to call them and request my grades regardless (I'm graduating soon) and got them 6 months after the end again. The people in Warsaw are so helpful and friendly though. If you're not graduating right away or not worried about grades coming in late, I DEFINITELY recommend Poland. No one ever goes to Poland because a lot of people (including some people who studied there) cannot find it on a map. It's a really interesting place and if you're a patient person, DO IT.
Comments about host city: Warsaw is a love-hate city. You can love it or hate it. I prefer other cities in Poland to Warsaw, but I miss it.
General comments: At least visit Poland if you're nearby.
COST: CIEE is pretty expensive. I think it was $10 or 15,000 for one semester. At my uni, I also had to pay a little bit to keep myself active as a student. My uni also offered tons of scholarships for this, so that is something you need to look into.</p>

12

<p>Has anyone done a study abroad program in Costa Rica? I'm interested in the programs offered in Manuel Antonio by IPSA.</p>

13

<p>Program Name/Company (if applicable): My college, Auburn University
City, Country: Paris, France
Year: 2008
Duration: June 30-July 30</p>

<p>Education Options: Classes at the Institut Catholique de Paris, all levels beginner to advanced (placement test given online before arriving in France)
Comments about education: I took 21 hrs/week, which was 3 hours every day of General French from 9am-12pm, along with 2 3hr classes that were once a week each (Tues and Thurs afternoons 2-5pm... gotta love that French 2 hour lunch break!). One was French writing, the other was oral French, but others including literature, business, and phonetics were offered as well.</p>

<p>Housing options: Home-stays with French families, and dorm-stays with nuns (for girls) or priests (for boys). I stayed in a dorm which was literally across the street and up a little bit from the school (took all of 5 minutes to get to class). My dorm was run by these very sweet Sisters. Most people stayed in rooms which you shared with one other person (some people had their own rooms, but these were much smaller than the two person rooms). These were fairly large rooms with large floor to ceiling windows, a sink, two twin beds, two nightstands, a hutch, two dressers, and two desks with chairs. There was one toilet and two showers for each floor, in rooms down the hall. Breakfast and dinner were provided each day (except no dinner provided on Sundays) by the nuns. </p>

<p>Comments about housing: I absolutely LOVED our Sisters. It was like living with 12 grandmas! I am not Catholic but they were extremely nice and many of them spoke English if we had questions about specific things.
My program was small so we got to pick our roommates ahead of time (I stayed with my friend Marie).</p>

<p>Program sponsored activities/excursions: Our program went on two (optional, meaning extra cost) excursions: 1 to Versailles, and 1 to Giverny (Monet's Estate). These were very cheap excursions, costing between 20-30 euros each (Versailles: 25 euro ticket for the estate plus ~5 euros to take the RER out there and back. Giverny: 18 euro train ride to Vernon r/t, 4 euro bus ride to Giverny r/t, and about 4 euros to enter the Estate). </p>

<p>Comments: I really loved my program, although I would've liked to stay longer than one month. The program is open to people who do not go to my university so if it's something you're interested in, look up Auburn Abroad on auburn.edu. </p>

<p>Comments about host city: If you ever get the chance, Paris is THE place to be in the summertime. July weather is about the best you could possibly get. Nice warm weather (most days, a couple of hot ones and a couple of cold ones), about 75F, hardly any rain (these would be the cold days usually). Always something to do, the m</p>