Indecisive types beware: the neatly arranged bookcases in the Office of International Studies are more overwhelming than meets the eye. To explore the library is to choose between 39 countries and over 140 programs.
With many of the program application deadlines approaching, interested students must make a slew of decisions, including not just which region they’d like to visit, but also what kind of program they’d like to use.
According to Carolyn Sorkin, director of the office of international studies, study abroad programs fall into one of three categories: direct enrollment, experiential learning, which centers around an internship or project, and hybrid programs that combine the best of both worlds.
Direct enrollment, as the name suggests, allows students to take classes alongside native students. Because these programs often have minimal mediation on the part of the institutional provider, students’ social lives depend on their willingness to take initiative.
“Academically, if you’re going abroad to try and study, you don’t understand what going abroad is really about,” said Justin Costa ’06, who spent the fall of his junior year on the Wesleyan-Vassar program in Madrid. “What you really learn comes from going out and experiencing the Spanish culture- the language, the plays, the museums.”
For students with dreams of getting as far from Middletown as possible, direct enrollment might be the best option.
“If you have the language skills to do it, direct enrollment is the experience that’s most like the experience of the student in the host country,” said Sorkin.
The independence afforded by such programs can be either exhilarating or daunting, depending upon the student’s personality.
“Direct enrollment is a really great option for a student who’s a bit more independent,” Sorkin said. “Sometimes there’s no orientation, sometimes no help finding housing. Some students like the idea of home-stay.”
Experiential learning, with an emphasis on fieldwork, research projects, and internships, is the second category of study abroad programs. It is for students whose interests are specific and focused. Programs of this kind include Tropical Conservation Studies in Madagascar, Arts and Culture in India, and Reconciliation and Development in South Africa.
“I was able to link up with an organization called Africa Leadership Institute,” said Meredith Katz ’07, who just returned from the FIT Program in Uganda. “It was a brand new organization that I got to help start. The goal was to promote democracy and democratic governance in the country.”
Students who go on such programs consistently report in their exit evaluations that the academic workload was less rigorous than a semester at Wesleyan, yet they “learned so much.”
“It suggests a different type of learning,” Sorkin said. “Often times, it feels different from being at Wesleyan but your brain is working hard most of the time.”
To counteract the fact that the students study with fellow Americans, experiential learning programs almost always include a home-stay.
“Students say it’s the best part,” Sorkin said.
While many students are thrilled by their independent research and experiences living with a host family, others find the lack of opportunities to interact with the local population binding.
“Sometimes students feel experiential learning programs shield them too much from host countries,” Sorkin said. “Some students appreciate that they know exactly what they’re getting.”
Katz, who had two home-stays over the course of her term abroad learned that classes are not the only place to meet local students.
“Although I was with [American] university kids, I had a lot of exposure to Ugandans,” Katz said. “We took classes on campus and were able to meet Ugandans that way.”
To be sure, students who directly enrolled in foreign universities have voiced similar complaints. Sorkin and students alike said that even within sheltered programs, students can find ways to interact with the local culture if they show enough initiative.
“Some people are shyer, don’t have as much confidence in their language skills,” Sorkin said. “Different people have different levels of engagement with the culture.”
“You could hang out with American students the entire semester, but if you so you choose, you can have lots of play time with Frenchies,” said Julia Kleinman ’06, who spent her junior spring semester on the Wesleyan program in Paris. “For instance, a few Wes students would go out for drinks and meet French people at the next table over, and end up speaking French to Parisians during the get-together.”
If academics are a priority, you might consider an “Island” program. Like direct enrollment, these programs feature a classroom setting and, like experiential programs, do not place students alongside native students.
Some other programs with a similar structure include the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome and the Edinburgh Parliamentary Internship Program.
According to Sorkin, one student who did the Budapest semester in Mathematics reported taking a history course. And by history class, he meant the History of Math.
As with experiential programs, Island programs tend to be highly structured, and often make interacting with the local culture more difficult.
“I didn’t like that it was so separate from Copenhagen and the rest of Denmark,” said Victoria Belyavsky ’07, who took classes with other American students while on the DIS Program in Copenhagen, which is affiliated with but not part of the University of Copenhagen.
This isn’t to say that such programs preclude all exposure to the local culture. In fact, many facilitate programs intended as corollaries to the academic curriculum.
“There were a lot of study tours and travel to museums and other places so you can see things relevant to what you’re learning,” Belyavsky said.
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