Visiting the Parliament in Scotland, dining with a billionaire alumni in Shanghai, visiting World War II sites in Nuremburg or simply sipping cappuccino in a Tuscan café between lectures on literature are all experiences available to students choosing to participate in Southeastern’s study abroad programs. Despite the many budgetary challenges facing Southeastern, the Office of International Initiatives is still offering a wide-ranging set of study abroad opportunities for students during 2011.
This year’s programs include trips to Europe, Latin America and Asia. These programs provide students with an international experience while allowing them to earn up to six hours of academic credit. Last year, over 150 students took advantage of the study abroad programs available through Southeastern.
According to Dr. Kent Neuerburg, director of Honors and International Initiatives, there are programs being offered in England, Germany, Italy, Scotland and Ireland, Spain and Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Additional trips are proposed for Costa Rica, Panama and China. Each program offers several courses from which students may choose.
Some programs are focused for a specific discipline. For example, the trips to Costa Rica, Panama and China have been created for business majors, and the trip to Ecuador is designed to allow students to do field research in biology. Other programs offer a variety of courses that may be used to satisfy requirements for general education or for specific majors or minors.
This year’s programs offer courses in art, biology, communications, English, German, history, humanities, management, marketing, philosophy, political science, Spanish and theatre.
Financial aid is available to help students offset the cost of these trips.
“The SGA (Student Government Association) is always very generous in providing scholarships for several students enrolling in study abroad programs,” said Neuerburg. “In addition to the SGA scholarships, there is the Charles Redman Scholarship, funding available through the Institute for Global and Domestic Development, as well as support available through the department of languages and communication.”
Neuerburg emphasized that, “students should take advantage of the opportunity to travel abroad. These are truly life-changing experiences.”
“Of course, we make every effort to ensure that students have a safe and enjoyable study abroad experience,” said Neuerburg. “All students attend an orientation session in which information on safe travel is provided. All of the programs that we are offering are in safe and stable countries.
The trips are lead by Southeastern faculty who are familiar with the host country, the environment, emergency services, etc. In addition, every student is provided with an international student insurance card, and all of our trips are registered with the U.S. Department of State so that the local embassies know that we are bringing a group of students into the host country. We certainly don’t anticipate any problems on our trips, but the program coordinators are well prepared to deal with any issues that might arise.”
The application deadline is Feb. 25, 2011, but students should start the application process as soon as possible. Interested students can go to the International Initiatives Office in Room 122 of McGehee Hall to start the application process, obtain details on the programs, courses offered, costs, financial aid and other information.
Additional information is available on the Web site www.selu.edu/studyabroad.
Contributed by Dr. Kent Neuerburg, professor of mathematics and director for honors and international initiatives.