<p>To the veterans out there:</p>
<p>Daughter has begun looking at Study Abroad programs for next year. Does anyone have any sage advice? Not so much looking for info on specific programs, but more big picture do's and dont's based on hard-learned lessons?</p>
<p>What does she hope to accomplish during her time abroad? How fluent is she in a foreign language?
There are different types of study abroad experiences. One type is organized and staffed by the home institution. While it makes transition easier and garantees the quality of courses, it means far less exposure to foreign experiences--inlcuding academic and local people. Another type is where the home institution accredits foreign ones--though it has to vet the courses prior to departure--, but the student is on his or her own, including in terms of housing.<br>
Colleges have found that the overwhelming majority of students spend their semester or year abroad in English-speaking environments (S1 did so). Some schools do have good programs in non-English speaking countries. Princeton-in-Asia, Yale-in-China and now Harvard at Beida are examples. Some prior knowledge of Chinese is required, but immersion really improves the students' fluency.
Also, some students use their time abroad to do some research toward their senior honors theses. One young man I knew went on an archeological dig.</p>
<p>Like most sensible college students, I think she probably hopes to accomplish a fun 4 month European adventure! Who wouldn't?</p>
<p>I'm more inclined to think about something that will push the rock forward with a bit more gusto, something that provides at least one of the following:</p>
<p>1) Serious language immersion to turn the book-learnin' into actual fluency.</p>
<p>2) A truly eye-opening cultural experience in a way that I'm not convinced Western Europe really does for an American student in a 21st century world who has already travelled to Europe several times.</p>
<p>3) A research/academic experience that signficantly strengthens the major (and resulting resume). Semester abroad sightseeing in Europe is not terribly creative or uniquely interesting. Seems to me that it's more of a "oh, that's nice, you did a semester abroad in Europe". Seems sort of "last century" in a rapidly globilizing world.</p>
<p>Alas, those three potential goals may not equate to the most fun or the most comfortable experience.</p>
<p>I'm not so much asking about specific programs -- I've got the basic lay of the land on the options available. I'm more interested in whether anyone has any war stories about setting goals and selling the idea of something that is more of a stretch. How did you go about weighing the value of the experience viz-a-viz the price tag (full semester tuition, room, and board?) Has anyone been through the parent/student negotiation process?</p>
<p>ID:</p>
<p>I don't think my S was very stretched; I regret that. He took university courses and got credit for those. But he was in Australia, and it seems to me that he did not get the real "shock of the new" I wished he would have gotten. His housemates came from Australia as well as different parts of the world, so he did get exposed to somewhat greater diversity. For S, we paid the same tuition as if he had stayed put. Room and board were comparable. The difference was the airfare.</p>
<p>Students who can spend a semester abroad not studying usually make use of their Advanced Standing (S's college did not allow that), so they can afford to spend a semester or a year doing something that will truly immerse them in the culture. One young man I know speng six months on a dig, then six months working with an NGO. His time on the dig convince him he needed to work on his French so he spent the summer in France doing that. His studies were subsidized by a grant from his college.</p>
<p>I know of a young woman who was at Smith who went to Africa for her junior year abroad. She was interested in African dancing; in Senegal, she pursued that interest and also learned Woloff (sp?). Another young woman who was interested in veterinary medicine spent time on a reservation in Africa. Still another young woman (female students are said to go abroad in greater numbers than males) went to Mongolia and Japan.</p>
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I don't think my S was very stretched; I regret that.
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<p>Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. The school's deal is that you pay tuition, room, and board and they cover the cost of any approved program including transportation. </p>
<p>You can buy an awful lot of fun travel for a heck of a lot less than a semester of tuition and fees (I'm pretty sure that $20 grand would buy a mighty fine Euro holiday!), which is why I am kind of thinking there ideally should be an educational "stretch" component. Conversely, there are other types of study abroad programs that would be very difficult to do later on or outside of a college program. Thus, does it make sense to focus on those kinds of "special" opportunities.</p>
<p>I'm wondering if I'm alone in that thinking, i.e. how hard to push it?</p>
<p>DS is currently doing a study abroad sponsored by his home college, Boston University, in cooperation with the Royal College of Music. I believe he is being "stretched" well. Also, because he is studying at a British school, he is getting exposed well to the culture there too and learning and playing alongside British (and international) students. I personally like how BU has their programs set up in London. They own flats (apartments) and a BU center which includes classrooms, library and computer center. In my opinion, he is getting the "best of both worlds" with this arrangement. Also, he is taking the exact same courses he would be taking if he were in Boston...just in London instead. The perk is that he also is able to do some travelling in Europe while he is there. We would have been paying the same amount for him to be in Boston and this experience in London is certainly a different and valuable one for him.</p>
<p>Thumper:</p>
<p>I can absolutely see that European study-abroad would push the rock further along in certain majors: music, art history, Classics, total immersion in a language, etc.</p>
<p>I guess I'm wrestling with dual purpose considerations: an interesting place to spend a semester AND something with a relevant purpose.</p>
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Also, he is taking the exact same courses he would be taking if he were in Boston...just in London instead.
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<p>That's exactly what I meant when I said my S had not been very stretched. The type of courses S took could have been taken in his home college, he was among English speakers who enjoyed more or less the same films, music, food he did. Only the scenery was different. Now, if he had spent his semester in Mongolia...</p>
<p>I-Dad, My son decided not to go abroad Junior year. Having lived overseas most of his life, he felt he wanted more, not less, exposure to America. Also, and this may be pertinent to your daughter as well, ultimately he felt that he just didnt want to give up a year or even a semester of classes at his college for a less rigorous academic experience (again, this is within the context of being quite widely traveled already.) He figured he had summers, holidays and the rest of his life to experience the real world and only four years with the Williams professors. Im not saying that he wouldnt have learned a lot by going abroad; it was just a choice for him between two different but both excellent options and he chose to stay put.</p>
<p>About half of his friends are going overseas this year; they are pretty equally divided between whole and half year stints. Some have chosen the more traditional locations in Europe, others more exotic destinations like Vietnam, Oman, East Timor. There is a lot of educational stretch in the third world and I couldnt recommend any place more highly than Indonesia as an experience that cant be grasped without being there, but of course the same could be said about many locales. Most of the kids chose their desired country first based on their area(s) of interest, e.g. a specific religion, political involvement, art form, language, scientific research opportunity then sought out corresponding programs approved by their college.</p>
<p>Momrath, I completely understand your son's logic.</p>
<p>Also, the point about relative value compared to four wonderful courses gets at the heart of my initial question. I'll feel a lot better about endorsing a deal that clearly represents equal "educational" or "horizon-expanding" value.</p>
<p>Idad, I think you are wise to carefully evaluate the value of the abroad programs. My understanding is that many European universities are run differently than U.S. colleges. There is more reliance on independent study. So it may not always be an "apples to apples" comparison. </p>
<p>I have a daughter at Smith and while we are willing to pay for her Smith experience, we were not convinced we should pay the same amount in tuition and fees for most abroad programs. </p>
<p>So this is how we handled it. D had a full year of AP credit when she entered college. (I believe Smith, like many other colleges, has since tightened up on the credits given for AP, so that might not be an available option for everyone.)</p>
<p>We suggested to D that rather than use her extra credits to graduate early, she do a "do it yourself" junior year abroad experience. We figured that working in a foreign country would teach her more than sitting in a classroom in one. </p>
<p>She took a one-semester leave of absence from Smith for fall of her junior year - saving us full-pay parents a nice piece of change. She was very fortunate to line up a job teaching business English to adults in China - got airfare, accommodations, training, daily instruction in Mandarin, etc. plus a modest (by U.S. standards) salary. She left in June and stayed in China until December. So she was away longer than she would have been for a typical semester abroad. She actually had two major assignments so experienced two cities in China. She returned with certification to teach English to non-English speakers, which apparently can be used anywhere. She also had some great professional work experience. </p>
<p>Most significantly, she had a VERY meaningful and non-touristy cultural experience. Hard to imagine how it could be beat. Can't take the space for details here, but she definitely learned how very differently the place really operated, in situations not experienced by tourists! </p>
<p>She is an economics major with an interest in developing economies, so this exposure worked out well for her. </p>
<p>Frankly, I think some of the abroad exchanges are profit-makers for the home institutions, which collect their full tuition while most European schools are lower cost -- in part because of the diffferences in the delivery system. If a kid is on financial aid which "travels with" the student, it may not matter, but I think it is worth evaluating the value. Anyhow, what we did worked great for us. Our D still felt she had had an away "experience" and I do not think she has any regrets that it was not in a classroom. This is not meant as a criticism of the Smith programs at all; as a matter of fact our D did have some very worthwhile January term abroad experiences through Smith (in Spain and Peru). But what she did for her junior year was, we feel, "priceless."</p>
<p>Actually, at Smith, their own programs (which are all western Europe) are consistently money-losers and heavily subsidized, because of the intensity of the programs, which involve enrollment at local universities, their own center for intensive language and stylistics classes, homestays, and internships (which they pay for.)</p>
<p>From the student's point of view, programs are really of three types: language-based and intensive ones; language-dabbling ones; and those conducted in English. I really only know about the first type, which generally speaking require a minimum of two years of collegiate language study before you can do them, all classes are conducted in the language of the location, and usually involve a pledge not to use English as part of the program. These also offer chances for internships (the Smith program in Geneva sets up internships in the banking and U.N.-NGO sectors, all in French; and programs in early childhood ed., in Tuscany, in Italian), and are usually the only ones (relatively rarely) that you can take science courses at foreign universities (as in Hamilton's program in Paris). </p>
<p>I can't really weigh the money issue: in our case, the financial aid pays for virtually all of it (and she's pairing it with a paid internship in Italy the summer before, oddly enough, Third World NGO-related work.) And since I have been encouraging my d. to simply take a year off for virtually forever (and since she is already heavily world-traveled), for her, the study abroad/dabbling thing, or an experience conducted in English, wouldn't make any sense. We, luckily, knew that coming in, at admissions.</p>
<p>There are some pretty special experiences out there though, that do involve the college's own faculty. Earlham has a lot of them, ranging from its Border Studies program in the southwest, to its Vienna choral program, to its rather unique ecology/botany/cultural studies program in East Africa. </p>
<p>There are other programs that have special things to offer, even if not the intensity of language study/immersion. Whether they are worth the money is a good question. The IES program in Milan has music students at the Verdi Conservatory and backstage at LaScala, and there are several interesting archaelogy-related programs in Rome (I think Duke has one.) I've always thought the Williams-in-Oxford program was pretty cool, too, though, surprisingly, the students live by themselves and not with other English students (or at least they used to, unless that has changed.)</p>
<p>Frankly, I think virtually any experience that gets a student out of his/her comfort zone is a good thing - but to make a judgment about what that would be you have to know the individual student. ;)</p>
<p>HYP have been having trouble getting their students to study abroad for reasons alluded to in posts above. Many of them are well-traveled by the time they arrive on campus and/or plan on traveling abroad while in college anyway. Another reason, also mentioned above, is that they are loath to give up the opportunity to take wonderful courses at their home institution for courses that may not be quite as good. Stil, Larry Summers at Harvard is eager to push more students to go abroad and is having some success.</p>
<p>The kind of experience Jyber's D had is what, in retrospect, I would have liked for my S and for students going abroad.</p>
<p>What language or country? Anything in particular he'd like to get out of the experience? Here is ours:</p>
<p>My oldest did the "Junior Year in Munich" program. He chose to go for one semester only (which was April through July.) The JYM program had a culture/language class that they taught to the Americans, but otherwise the students were in classes with all German students, and had to meet the same expectations. He was minoring in German, and considered himself pretty fluent, but it was definitely a stretch. He was the only American in 3 classes, and had one other JYM student in the 4th.</p>
<p>He planned the program before we knew we would be living here (we only had a 3 week official notice that we would be living here!) so he actually ended up only 2 hours away. We helped him move in and out, and he spent 4th of July weekend with us, bringing along a handful of friends, via train. Other than that, we didn't really see him. It was interesting, watching him go through the program. I suffered severe culture shock when we moved here, and was quite depressed. I think he thought he would handle it so much better, because he spoke the language, had learned about the culture, (Plus, in Munich, nearly everyone speaks at least some English -- Not true where we live.) And, truthfully, he did. For one thing, he's young and flexible! And yet we watched the "wanderlust" slowly fade, and by graduation, he couldn't wait to get a job in the good ol' US of A. </p>
<p>It was definitely a valuable experience, in many, many ways. He really had to live another culture, and face a lot of those challenges. He came away with a confidence of having surmounted those challenges. His German immersion really filled out his language skills, and he was proud when people told him they could tell that they couldn't tell where he was from. (He made enough errors that they knew he wasn't native, but his accent and such became much less pronounced - no pun intended.) He was paired up with a German girl who wanted to refine her English, and they met weekly for conversation. He lived in an apartment/dorm (actually the Olympic housing from '72) with Germans - mostly students. He learned the transit system around Munich as well as a native.</p>
<p>He ended up with all A's, (1s and 2s) but worked quite hard for them. BTW, he went via UPenn, but students came from many different colleges into this program.</p>
<p>Hello Mini,</p>
<p>Smith offers only four abroad programs (Florence, Geneva, Hamburg, Paris). They cut the one in Madrid some time ago. If you don't want to do the western European thing, you have to go through another school's program -- yet still pay Smith's higher-than-average tuition. Based on my D's January-term abroad experiences I have no doubt that the programs Smith offers are worthwhile. (Unfortunately, the J-term abroad programs have been practically eliminated due to Smith's budget cuts, with the exception of the Tibet in India one, which the prof apparently had written into his contract. We were fortunate to have the options available in our D's first and second Smith years, of which she took full advantage -- studying flamenco dancing in Madrid, and Spirituality and Biocultural Diversity in the Peruvian High Amazon.)</p>
<p>I'm not saying that what she did is right for everyone, but the do-it-on-your-own-and-just-work-there option is one I am surprised more don't consider.</p>
<p>binx,
Do you know anything about the Universitat Augsburg? I think it's near Munich. My son is considering doing some study abroad there.</p>
<p>While my son is taking the same "courses" in London as in Boston, he IS taking them at Royal College of Music. The British way of taking college courses puts significantly more independent work onto the students. DS tells us, for example, that for a three credit course at BU, he would attend class for three hours and have independent work to do. At RCM, he attends class only one hour and has much more independent work to do. To me (and to him) this raises the bar for learning. The study abroad programs <em>I</em> personally do not see as being AS valuable are the ones where the send US school also had full staff in the foreign country teaching the courses. I guess my opinion is that if you are doing study abroad, you should be taking courses at a university IN that country. And yes...the arts, art history and music are wonderful fields to be studying in London. DS and friends are going to Amsterdam, Munich and Vienna this coming week. In all three places, they will be going to concerts and seeing where their craft (music) had much of its roots.</p>
<p>Thumper:</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification. I would not consider the courses your S is taking as the same as what he would be taking here, despite the same coverage or title. You can often find in a college catalog two courses with the same title but at different levels. Your S is having a different learning experience, and of course, for music, the environment is very important. It is not quite so important for some other fields unless there are opportunities for research that are not available at home (eg in the sciences).</p>
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If you don't want to do the western European thing, you have to go through another school's program -- yet still pay Smith's higher-than-average tuition.
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<p>That part is OK. The name on the study-abroad program is kind of like sponsoring a PGA golf tournament. For example, Mini mentioned the Duke-ICCS program in Rome -- a very good program, btw. 30 years ago, that was the Stanford-ICCS program. I don't think the program has changed just because the "title-sponsor" has. </p>
<p>The main purpose of the badge is administrative -- the program is really managed by the permanent staff in Rome, but they need a US university to handle the paperwork (transcripts and the like) and give it an impimateur. </p>
<p>I suspect the badging is probably sold just like sponsorship packages for PGA golf tournaments.
Pay the biggest fee and your school can be the naming-rights sponsor. For a smaller fee, you can be a "member" institution.</p>
<p>I've run across several programs that have changed their affiliations over time.</p>
<p>There are a few programs (like Smith's) where faculty members of the host school's language department do rotate through every few years as a regular part of their teaching loads/research interests. Swarthmore's French program is like that, but I can't see where it really makes a fundamental difference.</p>
<p>I think the best study abroad programs are those conducted by Americans who who know and speak the foreign tongue well. I would look for a U.S. college prof who was foreign born. The reason I say this is my own experiences were greatly enriched by such professors.By this learning so much not only about different cultures but different ideas as well and of what is important in foreign knowledge. I also think a program in which the students actively interact with foreign students is greatly enriching having had that experience as well.These type programs may be an archeological dig in a foreign country where there are students participating from that country. Finally a study abroad program in my opinion must be for credit. THat is there is study material and a test.How can you really appreciate Roman Art unless you study it and learn it nuances? Just a 'tour' in my opinion is a waste of time.</p>