By Daniel A. C. McBride
Opinion Editor
Washington College’s Study Abroad has long stood as a glistening pillar among the opportunities the college offers. Arguably, one cannot even imagine a college experience void of such an invaluable opportunity, for short-term, semester, or even year-long terms of study abroad have found themselves baked into nearly every university portfolio this side of the equator.
As is the case for our institution, WC’s Global Education Office (GEO)currently offers 32 affiliated study abroad programs, ranging from short-term and course specific excursions in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, to semester and year-long programs in five continents.
Such a spread leaves students with a slew of options to consider when electing to study abroad, though contrasted with schools like Salisbury University and the University of Maryland, which offer upwards of 200 study abroad programs, even our most exotic of abroad destinations leave students asking for more.
Junior Sophia Garcia, albeit enamored with her time spent abroad, felt the options of study to be too narrow.
Her options, she said, were limited: she would have liked to study in Spain, but the program wasn’t offered for the semester she’d chosen. She elected to study in Finland instead, and came away glad for it.
“[It was] an eye-opening experience,” she said.
She recommend study abroad to anyone with the means. But enjoying time spent abroad is a low bar for an institution to clear, and perhaps a student’s semester abroad should not hinge on whether the College sustains a partnership in the right country, with availability during the right term.
This is where the case for opening the door to third-party and non-partnered programs becomes, to many students, overdue.
“I think people should be able to go through other organizations besides [those listed at] the GEO office,” Garcia said. “Time and resources are limited, and it would expand the possibilities for many students.”
She is right, and the logic is not unique to Washington College. GEO cannot realistically build institutional partnerships with thousands of universities across six continents; no office at a college our size could.
One could argue that WC doesn’t necessarily have to. Dozens of accredited and lauded third-party providers already do the vetting work that GEO would otherwise have to replicate from scratch; these are organizations like IES Abroad, CEA CAPA Education Abroad, and International Student Exchange Programs (ISEP), which place students at partner universities worldwide with existing infrastructure for safety, housing, credit transfer, and equivalent academic prestige and rigor.
Each of the above organizations retains strong, long-lasting relationships with many national universities; facilitating not only semestral travel, but shorter term periods of study and internships at some of the most isolated of destinations.
The objection, presumably, is college oversight: how does the college guarantee quality and safety if it isn’t the institution directly brokering the relationship?
One could concede that this is a solvable administrative problem and not a reason for a blanket restriction.
GEO could establish a review and approval process for third-party providers: perhaps a rigorous vetting checklist, a more nuanced credit approval system, anything without insisting it be the sole facilitator of study abroad. An expanded array of study abroad programs would enrich not only our GEO program, but the international standing of our institution itself.
Photo Caption: Students to apply for a limited number of study abroad programs through GEO.
Photo by Daniel A. C. McBride