Educators are thrilled to see more American college students venturing abroad — perhaps 300,000 this year alone.
Now if they can just get them to venture out of the “American bubbles” that can make the streets of study-abroad hot-spots such as London, Barcelona and Florence almost feel like exclaves of Tuscaloosa or Ann Arbor.
They’re trying. After decades of laissez-faire and faith that just breathing the air in foreign lands broadens horizons, American colleges and international programs are pressing students harder to get out of their comfort zones. It’s happening in popular destinations, as well as more exotic spots in Asia and Africa, where there are fewer Americans, but language and culture barriers make them even more tempted to stick together.
And it’s happening online, where one study found Americans on study abroad spent more than four hours per night communicating back home via the likes of Skype, Google Chat and Facebook.
The educators’ tools: less free time, mandatory local internships, signed promises students won’t speak English, and even “Amazing Race”-style solo scavenger hunts — like one where wide-eyed Nebraska students were dropped off their first morning in China in a distant corner of their new city with $5 and instructions to find their way back home alone.
“Unless something is set up that really forces them to get involved in that environment, they really don’t,” said William Finlay, a University of Georgia sociologist who became so frustrated with the bubble leading trips to Italy that he set up a new, intensive program that takes Georgia students to work in impoverished South African townships.
“We push them to do things that are uncomfortable,” Finlay said. “Sometimes they get overwhelmed.” About 260,000 American college students studied abroad in 2008-09, the years measured in the latest annual survey by the Institute of International Education. That was a small dip from the previous year, likely caused by the economy. Otherwise the numbers have been rising steadily for 25 years and that’s expected to resume.
An influential 2005 report by the Abraham Lincoln Commission set a goal of reaching 1 million students a year by 2016- 17 and making study abroad virtually as common and simple as enrolling in college.
In short, study abroad is following — a few decades behind — changes in higher education itself. Once reserved for a wealthy and adventuresome elite, it’s now reaching a wider, more diverse population that often has less travel experience.
But also like higher ed, study abroad is getting more expensive and facing pressure to demonstrate its educational worth. That’s harder on the short-term and summer trips — less than a semester — that account for most of the growth, and at the “safer” destinations of Western Europe that remain the most popular.
The danger is that it’s become easier to head off on what’s supposed to be a voyage of discovery and fail to immerse oneself in the local culture.
“People want real outcomes,” said Mark Lenhart, executive director of CET Academic Programs, which sends about 1,100 students per year from feeder colleges like Vanderbilt and Middlebury to programs in seven countries. “They want to come home with big improvements in their language and a really deep understanding of the place.”
That means giving at least some students a nudge, says Lenhart, whose programs make students live with local roommates. On his own study-abroad experience in China years ago, Lenhart remembers the Americans sticking together, fueling one another’s griping about the amenities. When they’re sharing a room with a local and can speak only Mandarin, they think twice about going through the trouble to complain.
Historically, most study abroad has taken place in so-called “island” programs, where Americans live, study and often party together. U.S. colleges like keeping a close eye on the education side of the experience, particularly if they’re awarding course credit.
Island programs, educators say, remain popular and valuable for many students — particularly those new to study abroad.
But many students want something different.
“I noticed a lot of these kids, first time out of the country, all they wanted to do was party,” said Lauren Hook, a University of Georgia senior who spent the spring of 2010 in Spain. The embarrassing sight of fellow Georgia students stumbling drunkenly around Valencia belting out Bulldog fight songs pushed her to explore more on her own. She also appreciated program activities setting up meetings between American students and locals. Meeting a Spanish boyfriend also helped.
Jake Hug, a recent graduate of Elmhurst College in Illinois, was looking for a “big change from Chicago.” With little knowledge of the country or Arabic, he took a full year away to study in a Moroccan university where he was the only American. He was grateful his program didn’t mollycoddle him. Moroccans were welcoming, and he resisted the temptation to hang out with his compatriots.
“I know Americans pretty well. I didn’t go there to learn about them,” he said. Hug, who now works for a Chinese freight company, says his last two employers seemed especially interested in him because of the self-reliance he showed studying abroad.
