Point: Counterpoint

Short-Term Study Abroad

Balancing What Students Need and What They Can Afford

By Julie C. Taylor

In a perfect world, students would enter our study abroad offices in search of semester or year-long programs that promise intensive study of the local language, immersion in the host culture through direct enrollment in local institutions, and residence with a family or non-American students. Money would not be an issue—only the quality of the academic and cultural experience.

In the real world, however, students come to us with a myriad of conditions and concerns that make finding a truly integrated study abroad match a constant challenge. Many do not study abroad during the academic year for fear of missing required courses. Many hesitate to consider non-English speaking countries because of anxieties over language barriers. But economic concerns are often the deciding factor: most semester or full-year programs are simply not affordable for most students.

So while more and more students each year are studying abroad, they are staying for shorter and shorter periods of time. According to the IIE report, Open Doors 1994-95, 37 percent of students who studied abroad in 1993-94 went for a semester, another 8 percent for either one or two quarters; 31 percent studied abroad during the summer term, and another 9 percent choose other short-term programs (January, May, etc.).

Challenging Old Assumptions

Student demand for inexpensive English-language programs with a professional or practical focus has created a market for short-term study abroad programs that is challenging the traditional assumptions and goals of study abroad. What can we as advisers and coordinators do to ensure that the integrity of the academic and cultural experience does not suffer when our students spend less time abroad?

We have to begin by acknowledging that short-term study abroad programs cannot deliver the degree of cultural immersion of the traditional junior year abroad program. Second, we must develop and support program models that take students out of a classroom and place them directly into the host community. Service-learning, volunteer projects, and programs focusing on social problems, for instance, require that students interact and collaborate with members of the host culture. While such experiences demand flexibility and a willingness to adapt to begin with, they also deepen and develop these skills in willing students.

Traditional pedagogical approaches to the study abroad curriculum—classroom learning of the host language and culture enhanced by cultural activities—have not sufficiently addressed the academic needs of students with majors in the professional and applied schools. The Open Doors report indicates that only 1.7 percent of health sciences majors, 4 percent of education majors, and 2.3 percent of engineering majors studied abroad during the 1993-94 academic year. Many of these students are locked into carefully structured programs that leave them out of the largely liberal arts defined study abroad loop. Short-term summer or winter break programs—such as a service-learning project at an orphanage in Guatemala or a problem-based consultancy with engineering firms in Malaysia—help students in the underrepresented majors find their place in study abroad.

Nontraditional Sites

Short-term programs can also be a way of attracting more students to nontraditional sites. Swaziland, Indonesia, or Ecuador may not appeal to most students for a full semester. A five- or eight-week program, however is less frightening and may be only the beginning of their international interest. If your timid students are like mine, they will likely find their way back to your office within weeks of returning and want to know how they can go back to the place they learned not only to survive but to enjoy. Challenged to recognize and manage the differences between the U.S. and their host culture, they return ready to continue their cultural, linguistic, and emotional explorations—which is perhaps more of a surprise to them than it is to seasoned practitioners.

Less Time, Less Cost

Less time abroad also means less in program costs. A longer program means that a student’s dollar goes farther, since program costs are spread out over a period of months, rather than weeks. But a $2,500 difference between the cost of a summer program and that of the fall semester program may be the difference between the student participating or not. Study abroad advisers must explain the difference in value between programs of different lengths and allow the student to make informed choices.

As short-term study abroad becomes an increasingly popular option, our approaches to program structures and goals must adapt. Cross-cultural orientation and reentry are no less important for participants in short-term programs. A country-specific orientation focusing on interpersonal communication and creative problem solving is still needed.

Criteria for Short-Term Programs

As advisers, we must hold short-term programs to the same standards of quality as longer programs. Advisers must work with students to determine if the program mission and the student’s expectations are compatible. Is it possible to master the health care system of India in three weeks?

By its nature, the short-term study abroad is limited in disciplinary scope. It demands that the program be focused and goal oriented. A fashion merchandising major on a three-week study tour of major retailers in London, Paris, and Rome has a decent chance of returning to the U.S. with a picture of the current European retail climate. But the program must also insist that students pay careful attention both to the local culture and to their subjective responses to it.

Given the short amount of in-country time, high quality predeparture preparation is crucial. Orientation should include detailed reading lists, discussion of analytical journal keeping, outlining the specific goals of the program.

In-country, superior programs attempt to offer problem-solving teams with local students, consultations with leaders of local firms and agencies, co-teaching, community service projects and internships, integrated classrooms, and homestays.

Post-program integration of the international experience into the student’s degree program is equally essential. This should include sequential coursework to build upon skills and knowledge gained abroad and perhaps an analysis of the full impact of what was learned overseas, formally presented to others as a paper or talk. Program evaluation and outcome assessment are also invaluable tools in ensuring the quality of the short-term program experience.

Inferior study abroad programs, whatever their length, simply transplant a U.S.-style academic experience from the home institution to a classroom abroad. If there is no structure to cause students to reflect on what they have seen and felt, then the “study” of study abroad doesn’t merit a passing grade.

JULIE C. TAYLOR, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Chad, ISEP participant in France, and an ESL teacher Japan, is Study Abroad Coordinator at Ohio Univ.