Reporting Words: Assignment 3

Powell, Austin

Each year more college students are packing their bags and taking their education outside of the classroom to a foreign country in the hope of experiencing a new culture.  The trend is also taking place at The University of Texas at Austin as UT is ranked fifth among colleges and universities in the number of students that go abroad each year, according to survey by a non-profit that specializes in international education.

            In a report by the same non-profit, college campuses across the nation reported that 270,604 students studied abroad the 2009-10 academic year compared to the 260,327 students who went overseas the previous year, representing about a four percent increase.

            In the 2009/10 academic year alone , UT sent 2,284 students overseas.  This was fifth among other higher education institutions around the country.  UT offers 450 study abroad programs in 70 countries.

            Third-year government major Eduardo Luna is the senior peer advisor for the Study Abroad Mentor Program (StAMP) at the UT Study Abroad Office.  This is Luna’s third year working as a peer advisor.  Luna studied abroad in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, last summer.

            ”Study abroad is definitely a topic of conversation that comes up often,” Luna said.  “Study abroad is not a decision to bed made lightly.  We as peer advisors try to educate students on the positive and negative aspects associated with.”

                        Luna is not the only person to notice a growing interest in study abroad.

            School of Journalism professor Dennis Darling leads photography Maymester course in Prague of the Czech Republic each summer.  He has witnessed the changes within the study abroad program at UT to account for its growing popularity.

            “My first time taking students abroad in the summer of 1985 to Ireland felt like a game of pick-up baseball,” UT design professor Dennis Darling said. “We had no cell phones or maps to guide us.  We scrounged for beds and breakfasts.”

            Since then study abroad has come a long way in the services it offers to students and teachers going abroad, Darling said.

            “Everything now is more structured in case an emergency arises.  Also, the university provides guides who speak English within the country,” Darling said.

            However not all is rosy within the Study Abroad Office.  The high volume of students can often make communication difficult between students and study abroad coordinators.

            “The Study Abroad Office is so slow in responding to my emails about getting my courses evaluated (for my degree requirements). Does he mean as far as if they count in his major?   It sometimes takes them two to three weeks to answer an email,” French and linguistics major, Chase Crook said.

            Crook is studying at a Parisian university in France on a UT exchange program. So, this is not a faculty-led program, right? So it’s at a university that is not affiliated? Can you explain that?

            However, in response to the growing popularity of study abroad the university has implemented new programs and scholarships to reach every student regardless of financial background.

            The newly implemented Global Pathways program, for example, seeks to appeal to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors with a 2.0 GPA or greater the opportunity to select from 15 different study abroad programs.  There is no foreign language requirement. 

            “The Global Pathways program is really opening up doors for students who were under the false impression that study abroad was hard to do.  This program will also give students the chance to apply for Global Pathways specific scholarships,” Luna said.

            The Global Pathways Planning Scholarship is worth $2,000 and is available to students two years prior to departure abroad.