Name pretty much says it. I’m not even in college yet, but my AVID counsleor told me to try making a degree plan for a college I’d like to go to and see if its possible to graduate faster then 4 years by using different method like studying abroad. At first I though a semester abroad would be obvious. But I want to know the pros and cons studying abroad during the summer and study abroad during Spring or Fall semester. Thanks abunch.
Anyone? I am interested in the timing question as well.
Studying abroad in the summer means paying for a summer semester, in addition to paying for the regular school semesters.
Yes, it is a cost issue. Generally for a semester, you pay your regular college tuition, get your normal FA, and take a semesters worth of courses that transfer back to your college. For a summer program, you pay extra beyond your normal tuition – and lose a summer’s worth of earnings and work/internship experience, too.
What do you guys think about its benefits. Like graduating college earlier.
Becuase freshman/sophomore summer of college I was hopeing I would save enough to take a faulty sponsored study abroad trip to accelerate my degree.
Like for say engineering, if you have 1 semester of ap credit (15 hours), and 1 semester of study abroad credit (12 hours), would you save money because your not paying an extra year(27 hours) of tuition? or better yet study abroad twice so you get out faster?
If your goal is to graduate faster (and save money) wouldn’t it be better to take classes locally during the summer? Studying abroad will still incur tuition costs and on top of that travel and all that entails. I don’t see this as a cost saving measure.
@ClaremontMom I though of that before, but most local colleges don’t have like 300 or 400 level classes in engineering or sciences that will transfer, but some studying abroad trips do (and its nice to have those kinds of classes show up on GPA right?).
Engineering + study abroad is challenging even without trying to accelerate, unless maybe you do something like GA Tech’s (super) program. Study abroad as a way to shorten your degree isn’t your best bet- especially if you want to shorten it to cut costs!
I’m not sure what you mean about study abroad classes looking good for your GPA, but check the rules at the college you want to go to: usually they have requirements about how many of the upper level classes in your major must be taken at their college. Lower level classes are generally more transferable.
So I guess studying abroad in Fall/Spring is a bad idea. For the record I am talking about programs sponsored by the college in a faculty led type of way so that the credit is guaranteed to transfer.
@collegemom3717
Wait i’m confused, how is studying abroad over summer challenging while doing engineering during fall/spring?
Anyways, I though it would be a good method to earn class credits if you already have your Gen Eds out of the way. Its that or pay university summer cost which isn’t always cheaper then studying abroad
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/gradschool/funding/tuition.php
http://arch.ttu.edu/wiki/Study_Abroad_2013_Cost_Comparison
The cost for room and board alone at tech is just as much as full tuition, rooming, meals etc abroad. not to mention summer tuition. And that is just for European countries. If your willing to go other places it could be much cheaper.
I said it looks good for your GPA b/c engineers who study abroad at Texas Tech for example come back with A’s in their classes for the most part. And since the class is taken with the university, it counts as credit for your university GPA. So you can take as many upper level classes as you want abroad as long as they are with a university sponsor because you are technically doing it with a professor from the university. (to my understanding anyways)
I don’t think summer programs are usually for a full semester of credits. They tend to be fewer credits. Also, you can’t be sure that an “hour” that a program or foreign university assigns to a class will equal an hour at your university – your college gets to decide.
At most schools engineers can study abroad for a semester, but you need to plan early and your choice of programs will probably be limited. Which isn’t necessarily bad. Each college handles transferring grades & credits differently. At D1’s college, they just transferred the credits, no grades (so no impact to her GPA). But that varies. Your best bet is to talk to the study abroad office at each college you are considering as part of your college selection process.
Again, I don’t mean programs that let you study at another college abroad, I mean the kinds of programs where a teacher from the university takes the student to study abroad for a class. Not at another university.
Heres an example of a 3 week one: http://engineering.tamu.edu/global/studyabroad/locations/Greece
While they aren’t as useful as a real semester of credit, its is still a nice method to consider for degree acceleration. When I try to make a degree plan, I noticed my AP won’t speed up a degree at all. But if you take say 3 engineering electives over summer you can speed you degree by one semester of college. http://engineering.tamu.edu/media/1915800/MEEN-Curriculum-Flowchart.pdf
While it doesn’t sound like a lot, what would you rather do: pay less for 1 summer in another country, or pay the cost of your university’s spring COA?
Sure, my kids’ colleges also offered those types of programs. They are a small slice of being abroad, and don’t always give you much exposure to local people and culture. You can also spend most of the time studying, too – I think I heard recently that in one of these types of programs from one of my kid’s colleges that the students ended up complaining as a group to the prof that they had so much work that it was pointless to be in a foreign country. I think the prof adjusted the schedule/workload based on this.
One thing you would miss out on is a summer internship experience – pretty helpful and almost expected of grads these days. You would want to time this (maybe early, after freshman year) to allow for internships. And you may have no summer earnings that year, too.
@intparent
Good point, I didn’t even think about how much harder the course would be under a shorter time period. And while it won’t be a very good cultural immersion experience, I wanted to know if it is a good method to graduate earlier.
But I’m not too keen about reserving a summer for internship/jobs that I may not get. It may just be my area, but every summer since I was 14 I’ve applied for at least once a week and have never had an interview. I may not see the missing summer earnings.
When you are in college, you really want to try to get internship experience before graduating with an engineering degree. Believe me, you will be competing against students for jobs after college who have had them. At a minimum, you want to try to have one summer after junior year. Some students succeed in getting them earlier as well. So if you are going to do the summer abroad, don’t wait until that summer. If you spend a semester abroad, spring of junior year isn’t the best time, as you should be hunting for an internship starting over winter break at the latest.
Regarding summer earnings, my kids had a hard time finding places that would hire them before they were 18, but then it got easier. One also has stayed on campus with a paid research position a couple of summers, and a lot of college have other paid summer positions (especially in admissions or orientation jobs).
First, trying to graduate faster isn’t necessarily a good idea. It depends on what you want to do - it may be better if you don’t plan on going to grad school, as you might for engineering.
Second, you can’t take 3 classes while abroad for a summer. You typically take one 3-credit class for 3 weeks, or 2 3-credit classes per 6-week session. (Also, I’m not sure how it’d be cheaper: don’t forget that the costs you see may or may not include room&board and almost never include plane tickets).
Third, after sophomore year and ABSOLUTELY after junior year you’ll have a summer internship. How else are you going to have a job? Your degree prepares you to do a job, the internship shows you can do it.
That being said, studying abroad can be a wonderful, eye-opening experience if you’re willing to learn from what you see: what do people do differently from what you’re used to? Why? Can we learn from it (or not)? etc. The key factor is to be open-minded, willing to try everything and anything (while keeping in mind that while abroad, you represent all Americans AND your university, so misbehavior won’t be judged as being your bad judgement, but “typical of Americans”. So, try everything, but be respectful and don’t do anything stupid.)