Good morning everyone. Will get started here in a few minutes.
Vanessa Hayward
10:01:46 AM
Good morning & welcome!!
Natalie Cartwright
10:01:46 AM
Please let us know if you cannot hear or see Vanessa or the Education Abroad slide. Thanks!
I do see some participants still trickling in.
It's good to have y'all joining us this morning for education rod session.
Well, it's about 1002 and I do like to stay.
On time, just in deference to your schedule, and I know there are a lot of other opportunities for you to check out today through the student involvement week with the office of admissions, so will get rolling.
I am Vanessa Hayward and I am a senior coordinator in the education abroad office at Colorado State University. If you're having any difficulties hearing me or seeing me, please do put a message into the chat and I'll be able to respond by adjusting my audio or video.
And today joining me I have Natalie Cartwright and she is our global opportunities coordinator in the College of business at CSU.
And Natalie is going to be our chat moderator.
So Speaking of chat, if you have any questions that pop up during the presentation, you're welcome to type them in the chat, and either Natalie will respond to them real time or will save your questions for the end because you might receive an answer during the presentation. And if you don't get your answer then I'll be sure to answer your questions at the end.
Little bit of housekeeping. I did enable closed captioning so if you would like to read along with the presentation just in your upper right hand corner of this interface, click on the CC square closed captioning and that will turn on close captioning for you and just a note that this presentation is being recorded and will be shared with you afterwards. So if there's anything that you missed or anything that you want to go back and view, or if you want to share it with a loved one or an interested person in your life.
You'll be able to do that.
So just to get us thinking about going abroad and envisioning ourselves there. I want you to Ponder. This question for a second and then I'm going to ask that you put your response into the chat so the question is if barriers did not exist barriers, such as academics or finances money time or distance. Where in the world would you want to go?
Put that destination in the chat right now as it comes to you.
I'm seeing Japan and Thailand, Italy, China with an exclamation point. Yes. Australia, Italy, Mexico News.
Japan, Italy or France, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Japan, etc. Right there so many options and wide limit yourself to just one.
And this is really exciting. You all have.
Thought already, you know, if there weren't barriers in your way, where would you be and my job today is to help you see that there aren't that many barriers in your way, or if there is an obstacle to start preparing to overcome, that is, that's one of the things that we do in higher education is we see a barrier and we figure out ways to get rid of it because those are skills that will need to have for the rest of our life.
I'm also seeing Austria, Indonesia, Switzerland and Japan coming in. Those are all great places to see as well.
So every place that you all have listed, we have students who have studied abroad there or had some kind of experience abroad. So I'm going to spend some time today talking to you about the nuts and bolts of going abroad, why you should go abroad, what it takes for you to go abroad, the different types of programs that we have. When I spend some time talking to you specifically about four different programs, we're going to talk about financial aid and how to pay for going abroad. And I'm going to.
Teach you some tools of how you can research the programs that we have. That would be a good academic fit for you.
So without any further ado, I think we should get rolling here.
Dayton McGrail
10:07:44 AM
Japan
Grace Kirk
10:07:49 AM
China!
Noel Black
10:07:50 AM
Italy
Jack Tuller
10:07:51 AM
I want to go to Mexico
Talia Ahlers
10:07:52 AM
Thailand
Bodie Spinner
10:07:52 AM
Australia or New Zealand
Elena Solano
10:07:53 AM
Japan, Italy, or france
Lorelei Bahnemann
10:07:54 AM
Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Japan, etc
Brianna Kline
10:07:55 AM
Austria, Indonesia, Switzerland
So I'm gonna forward the slide an you should see our second slide and I want to explain to you that our office is called the education abroad office so few years back we were simply called study abroad and we realized that study abroad wasn't an encompassing enough term. It didn't really capture all that our office does to facilitate experiences for students abroad. So we have students who are not only studying abroad but doing research internationally.
Having an internship abroad for a semester or a summer and then participating in service learning or community engagement while there a broad education abroad is a really popular thing for students to do at CSU specifically.
More than one in five students at CSU have had and will have had an international experience before they graduate. So at the time when we created this slide, we were at about 20%. And now we've inched towards 22 to 23% of.
Graduates from CSU have an international experience upon graduation, so that's a fact that we are very proud of. And it's a fact that we want to see growing. We want to see this figure increase if this is something that you are interested in doing. We want to facilitate this experience for you.
So you're here today for a reason.
Uhm, you, there's something inside of you. You know we saw all those questions. All those countries that you just said You wanted to visit.
I know that deep inside of you you're like Yes, going abroad there. There's something calling me towards going abroad and for students that can be various reasons.
We also often think about what are the benefits going to be after. I've had my experience or while I'm having my experience. How is this going to benefit me in the long run? So academically when we think about your experience abroad, all the experiences that might office facilitates our credit bearing experiences, meaning they you will gain at least one credit for your experience abroad. So that means you're going to be taking horse work while you're abroad, and academically you'll be able to experience your major.
In a different culture, perhaps you're an art history major and you've been studying the works of the Indonesian islands. Or you been studying the works of Italy and you will be able to go to that destination and see those works of Art, not necessarily in a museum, but in the place where they were created on the beach, where they may have been painted.
So academically is, it's often a strong reason why students want to go abroad. We also think about language acquisition. Some students go abroad to either learn a new language or strengthen a language that they already know or get closer to the roots of a language that they've known bilingually since birth, but haven't been immersed in a whole culture where that language is being spoken.
Often times when students think about going abroad, they think about the perks that it'll have for them or the skills that they are going to receive for the work place for the work that they will be doing once they graduate from their higher education experience, whether that's from an undergraduate Masters degree or PhD. Eventually most of us enter the workforce an when we enter the workforce, we are expected to be intercultural communicators and we are expected to be global citizens.
And being a global citizen means expanding your mind and having opportunities outside of the strict definition of experiences. Perhaps just here in Colorado or just here in Fort Collins.
One thing I want to share is when you come to Csus campus, you'll see that it is a rather international campus. We have upwards of 2000 international students. So if going abroad does not happen for you, you can still internationalize yourself. Become a global citizen, become interculturally competent right on CSU campus, and we have so many opportunities for you to engage with the international students who are here. You know those opportunities can happen right in a classroom, but they can also happen.
Intentionally by you engaging with Office of international programs. We have a cultural mentors program. We have activities that we offer.
Things that we do with international students and you are encouraged to get engaged in those. So if you do have this experience abroad, or if you cultivate an international experience for yourself on CSU campus, you don't want to talk with that. Talk about that with your future employer.
I have in my own experience when I have been on an interview or if I've had to go to a job fair.
Having an education abroad experience on my resume has been an easy ice breaker between myself and my future employer. That's it's something a little different about yourself on your resume that quickly breaks the ice and allows you to showcase some of the skills that you cleaned while you're abroad.
And you know a lot of those skills are going to be what some employers referred to as soft skills.
That word soft. It almost makes them seem like maybe they're not important, but those are actually some of the most important skills because they're not easily taught in a classroom. They're the kind of skills where it takes experience.
To embody the skill, oftentimes there things that were also born with, and they're also based on the experiences that we have, the types of skills and the type of person that you will grow into through an education abroad experience includes resilience and self determination. So when you go abroad for your experience, you may be one of the only may be the only person you know on your program or you may be in a program that's full of CSU students.
Either way, you're going to be probably outside of your comfort zone. You're going to be in a potentially a new culture, or it's a culture you know well that you're experiencing it in a different way through an education abroad experience or through an academic or through a research internship type experience.
And you're going to be able to exhibit yourself determination in order to be successful while you're abroad.
We know that our students who go abroad develop a deeper empathy for not only the world around them, but for themselves.
Our students who go abroad become leaders and I can tell you that employers love to see those leadership skills in our students also develop a strength in strategic planning in order to go abroad. There is a process that you have to follow through to go abroad. We're here to help you through that process and by going through that process you are strategically.
Skill that you're going to use for the rest of your life.
One of the pieces I always like to focus on when I present is busting myths about education abroad. So there is a myth that if you have an experience abroad, you're going to delay your graduation.
And that is totaly a meth. We have studied this at CSU. Another universities have studied this. Students who go abroad graduate at the same rate as their peers who do not go abroad and often they often graduate earlier than their peers who go abroad. So don't let that myth or that perceived barriers stand in your way.
Some moving right along with our presentation.
I slide my backwards hold on.
Wanna take a moment to talk with you about all the different places in the world that you could go? We have students on Seven different continents. Yes, all Seven continents. We have a researcher at CSU, Diana wall and she takes students to Antarctica. So we do really have students on every continent, which is kind of cool.
And you know, by looking at the slide you can see some facts there. We've got our students going all over the world to all different countries and these education abroad experiences are happening during all different times throughout the academic year. So you can go abroad for a semester or a break like winter break or summer break. You could go abroad for a week all the way to a year, and it really just depends on.
The type of experience that you want to have and the amount of resources that you have to dedicate to the experience.
And we're here to try to help facilitate Yuan finding that best program that fit that program. That's going to fit for you, for your academics, for your budget, for your lifestyle, goals, for your life, goals, really.
So another myth that I would like to bust is.
I have to speak another language to go to a country where they don't speak English. So for example, I have to be able to speak Spanish to go to Mexico or I have to be able to speak Italian to go to Italy or I have to speak French to go to France and that is not true. So we have many students at sea issue who want to experience another culture but they don't know the language of that culture yet.
So they'll take an introductory language course while they're there, and then they will take the courses in their major in English. So we have a very popular program in Paris. It's an engineering program, and I know that most of the engineering students might be kind of nervous to try to take their engineering classes in French, and so all those engineering classes are offered in English, and then students will take a supplemental French class on the side so that they will be able to navigate life in Paris and France.
And make some friends that way too.
So that's just one example. We have programs in every non English speaking country where your major courses will be offered in English.
See if my slides will advance here.
It seems to be a bit frozen with my slides.
OK, it's trying to load, I can tell.
So one of the features that my office has worked on steadily and with a lot of effort is creating recommended education abroad programs based on academic major. Also based on the GI Bill. So Natalie if you want it mind putting the link to our recommended programs website in the chat and then you all. If you would like, can take a moment and go to our recommended programs page.
If you're able to do that.
Natalie Cartwright
10:20:02 AM
https://myedabroad.colostate.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.AdvancedSearch
And I am also going to share my screen and I'm going to navigate recommended programs page with you to kind of demonstrate how that works.
So I'm gonna share my screen.
So here you should be able to see our recommended programs page.
And I think I selected the wrong audience. I'm going to Unshare.
Natalie Cartwright
10:20:50 AM
See the Recommended Programs list. Please note that your academic program might not be listed - this does not mean you cannot go abroad - rather we are still working on compiling an awesome list with key contributors from that academic program!
OK, so on a recommended programs page. If we Scroll down.
Hi everyone, can you let me know if you can hear me? It looks like we lost Vanessa so I'm going to see if she can get back on with Internet but we did want to walk you through some of the recommended programs. Did everybody see the link that I put in there?
And it looks like her screen is still sharing.
Towards the bottom will see some tiles with all of the 8 colleges at CSU listed. So if you're interested in anyone of these and a major in anyone of these colleges, you would select that. For example, today I'm going to select the College of liberal arts.
Natalie Cartwright
10:22:06 AM
Vanessa - we lost your audio
Natalie, you're breaking up on us.
So as we scroll through the college liberal arts along the left hand side, we'll see the various academic majors so we could select one like history.
And then we would click on the history. Recommended programs.
Natalie Cartwright
10:22:39 AM
https://international.colostate.edu/educationabroad/students/getting-started/recommended-programs-abroad/
So I think this is going to be fairly intuitive for you to play around with, and I would just encourage you to look through our recommended programs so once we get to the history page we can see there are approximately 12 programs that are listed as recommended programs that are through CSU and then at the bottom you'll see about Seven programs that are affiliate programs. I'm not going to explain the differences between those later, so I'm going to stop sharing my screen.
And I'm going to go back to our slides.
And I just want to make sure that everybody is still with me.
If you can still hear me.
And if you can still see the slides, will you just enter in a Yes?
OK, I see that you lost my audio.
Can everybody hear me now?
Hi everyone, I'm sorry you lost me.
Natalie Cartwright
10:24:13 AM
You are back
Just enter a yes in the chat. If you can hear me.
Thanks Natalie, I'm back.
So perhaps when I shared my screen something funky happened and I apologize for that. Um, Natalie did share the link to the recommended programs, and I think that it is really intuitive. So when you get to the recommended programs page.
You're going to be able to click on the college that you're interested in and then click on the major that you're interested in.
Natalie Cartwright
10:24:49 AM
It is intermittently freezing though
Can I just hear from one of our participants that you can hear me? Can you just one of our 19 participants that are out there? Can you just type in? Yes, that you can hear me.
Hey Natalie, said that I am intermittently freezing.
Next word Natalie like that.
I am sitting right next to My Internet so I am as close as I can be.
That you can hear me any one of you just type in a yes into the chat feature.
Can I hear from the one of our participants out there?
Natalie Cartwright
10:26:18 AM
Can a participant let us know if you can hear/see Vanessa or if she is freezing on your end as well?
Jack Tuller
10:26:26 AM
Cannot hear
Jack Tuller
10:26:27 AM
We can hear now
Jack Tuller
10:26:29 AM
yes
10:26:31 AM
Your presentation is coming in and out.
10:26:31 AM
audio is intermittant
I hear from Jack that I can be heard, but the presentation is going in and out and so I do apologize for that.
I am right next to My Internet. what I am going to do is I'm going to use an Ethernet cable and I'm going to attach directly to my modem. So just give me one moment please.
10:28:18 AM
she is freezing and audio is in and out.
OK everyone, I have attached the Ethernet cable. I have made sure that no one else in my house is using the Internet, so I'm hoping that this is going to work better for us.
And I'm sorry that the presentation was going in and out.
Technology we can only do so much with it sometimes.
I see that Natalie is broadcasting.
OK, um, if you can let us know if you can also hear me, I might have a little bit better of an Internet connection if that's what's causing the issues. Are this is the slide showing program types for folks with boats in Senegal?
10:29:18 AM
natalie is very clear
Lorelei Bahnemann
10:29:20 AM
yes
OK, I'm apparently very clear. Vanessa are you OK with us? Just kind of swapping spots?
Awesome, um, so we're going to talk about some program types. I like to explain it that we have two different umbrellas. At CSU we have CSU sponsored and then we have our affiliates. And then within those two large umbrellas we have different programs that fall into those categories. So on the CSU sponsored side, we have programs in known as exchanges.
Exchanges are kind of the traditional concept of studying abroad. Are education abroad that we usually think about. Perhaps if you've had an older sibling that's been ahead of you in college or another family member, or a friend you've maybe heard about them going to another University abroad and that they kind of swap spots with a student at that University. And this is kind of the basic model for an exchange, so one of our partners, Macquarie University, is right North.
Of Sydney, Australia. So as you can see on the slide, that's The Harbor Bridge in the Sydney Opera House, which are huge, an famously and landmarks for the city of Sydney. More query. University is in North Rider, so it's about a 20 minute train ride out of the city. So Sydney is very accessible still, but with going to Macquarie, a student can still really have a campus feel and they can really dive into Australian student life. Really get to know other students on campus they can participate in clubs and organizations just like they would at.
Yes, you you're taking all of your courses with local students. This could be students that are there for their four year degree plan. It could be other exchange students. It could be international students that are still there for there for years, so it's a really great multicultural set up within the classroom on these programs, but also on all of our programs. If you're going for a semester, you would be taking 12 credits to still be considered full time status, which is something really important. A lot of students always ask. Kind of what happens financially when they go abroad.
Um and with exchanges, students continue to pay CSU tuition and fees. So for some programs, exchanges can be really cost affordable. Australia New Zealand exchanges are typically very cost affordable just because the locations are very expensive with their cost of living. So we usually try to direct our students towards our exchanges if they're interested in certain locations. We don't have exchanges in all countries across the globe, but we do have him in quite a few I know.
Many of you said you were interested in Japan. We have exchanges in Japan. We have exchanges in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France. Those are going to be our big locations Speaking of Japan, another exchange is Kansai Gaidai. This exchange is really going to be focused on students learning Japanese language and cultural studies. So if you are thinking about doing a Japanese minor, if you are thinking about doing any aspect of International.
If you just always been fascinated by other cultures in the Japanese, culture might be one of 'em. This would be a really good exchange to kind of consider or a location to kind of consider.
As the global treaties coordinator for the College of business CSP, Prague, in the Czech Republic is actually our number one program in the college. I typically send anywhere from 15 plus students a semester 2 progaming reasons that is the cost affordability of this program. So on average a student is spending at CSU for cost of attendance which is going to be your tuition and fees. Your books, your supplies, your living expenses.
Anywhere from 13 1/2 to 15,000 depending on what college you are in, you'll start paying differential tuition and that's why there's kind of a range in there. But with the CSP program it's about 10,000 and change, so it's a couple of 1000 less than a semester at CSU. The other thing that makes it a really affordable program is typically when students go to Europe. They want to be able to travel to nearby in neighboring countries. Prog is very centrally located in the Czech Republic, but it's also.
Very centrally located in Europe, it's sometimes considered the heart of Europe and geographically if you looked at a map it kind of looks like that as well, so it's very easy to get to other neighboring countries and so students kind of have weekends to be able to travel out. So it's not just that the based program is affordable, but also cost of living in Prague is also still very affordable for it being a major major European capital city, unlike London, which is going to run a lot more expensive as the bus.
Bustling Metropolitan that it is.
Program location is very close to our heart at CSU is the total Santos enter. This is down in Baja California Sur. It's about an hour North of Cabo in Mexico. It's a very cute, quaint town and CSU operates out of a center down there with numerous programs throughout the semester in the academic year. So we have semester long programs that go here. We have winter break programs, summer programs. If you are joining us and you're going to be entering into the.
Um Warner College of Natural Resources. Lots of their programs actually use the center. There's a lot of unique natural resources to the area that are right at the students in the faculty's fingertips to be able to use one new program that we've designed down out of the total Santos center is a College of liberal arts semester program that pulls various subjects together. So there's math. There's history students don't need to know Spanish to go on this program.
Obviously it's encouraged to kind of pick up some.
Conversational Spanish while you are there just to help with you getting around the town and exploring. But it's definitely not needed. As Vanessa said, if you don't know the host language of a country that you're interested in, it doesn't mean you can't go there. It might just look a little bit different.
And then within that also within that umbrella of kind of explaining the different program types, the total Santos Santos. We also consider many of those are CSU sponsored programs. Since we're doing a lot of the coordination out of our office. One thing to note that I didn't mention is the other programs are affiliates, so that's the other large umbrella. And this is where we work with American companies that have a focus on education abroad. And that is their specialty an they cater to students across the US and sometimes across the globe.
That is the way that we are able to expand our portfolio offerings, not just from a handful of programs, but really to endless opportunities for our students. So when you're looking through those recommended program lists might see things that look like alphabet soup, it might be isa, CEA, USAC. Those are going to be our affiliate provider programs. They are great options, they get us into many countries that we don't have operations ourselves. For example is a really great option if a student wants to do a semester in Spain.
Since we don't have any exchange programs in Spain for this semester, same with Italy. The reason I call out to Spain and Italy those are two popular destinations for us, but also places like South Africa in Thailand where we also don't have exchanges. Students can still go there for a semester through our provider programs.
A lot of students want to know if they're going to be earning CSU or transfer credits from abroad. Majority of our students are going to be earning transfer credits. The exceptions to that are going to be our staff and faculty LED programs. So if you decide to go with CSU faculty or staff, I like to call it the CSU Trifecta. It's going to be CSU credit. It's going to be with CSU faculty and staff, and it's going to be with CSU students. There might be a guest student from another University every once in a while on these programs, but for the most part they are very much.
Most of our staff and faculty LED programs are going to be on the on the brakes, so winter breaks fall break spring break, San summers. We have a few that are starting to gain traction during the semester, but not as many and so these are usually going to be. Shorter term programs, transfer credits are pretty much going to be everything else, so the exchanges are going to be transferred credit. The affiliate provider programs. Those are going to be transferred credits. The one exception, first semester program that you will definitely earn CSU credit.
Is semester at sea CSU is the accredited academic partner for semester at sea and so all students, not just CSU Rams are earning transcripts from CSU for that semester. When you're earning transfer credits, the grades will show on your official transcripts going forward. So you definitely still want to do well in your coursework, but they will not calculate into your cumulative GPA.
A big part of going abroad or participating in an education abroad experience is obviously the money aspect. This is probably the number.
One thing that many students come forward with saying is something that they kind of need a plan for in order to make their semester abroad happen, which we totally understand. We are lucky at CSU to have a very awesome relationship with the financial aid office between the education abroad office in them and we actually have two individuals on campus that specifically work with special population students or special programmes. This includes students that are going abroad. Financial aid is tricky.
When you're staying on campus, but it can obviously get a lot more tricky or a little bit more confusing if you're going abroad. And so these two ladies Cindy and Victoria really help guide students through that process. One of the biggest things that we want students to know is 99% of CSU financial aid goes abroad with you when we talk about financial aid. We talk about actual financial aid that you might be receiving through Fasa. If you file the FAFSA for this year, it could be scholarships that you're receiving from CSU. It could be a CSU scholarship at large, like the.
President scholarship or it could be one that you were awarded through your college, but it can also be grants. So all of that kind of goes into the into the umbrella that we like to call US financial aid. So if you're receiving any sort of funding besides out of your personal funds, then you'll definitely want to bring that up in see if that will be able to go abroad with you. Which, like I said in majority of cases it will.
And the financial aid coordinators. They are available to students even right now. Throughout the summer. There obviously available during the academic year as well, so year round for you.
You've seen Vanessa and Vanessa introduced herself, but she is only one on a team of 10. He might be working with if you choose to study abroad. Below are or in front of you are the photos of the 10 education abroad coordinators for the CSU education abroad office at CSU education abroad coordinators are regionally divided for the areas that they opt for and so depending on where you might be interested in going or what type of experience you might be interested in.
Will determine who on staff that you would work with. So for example, if you were interested in going on the prog program then Marshaller would be your contact but you know if you were interested in going to Florence, Italy then you would work with Georgia grass. So kind of depending on what you're thinking or where you might. You might want to go if you're not sure and some locations are split between two different coordinators then you can certainly meet with both so that you can kind of figure out what's the best fit.
Option for you. Um, one quick note. If internships or research is something that you're interested in, then Sarah O'Donnell, who is the assistant director for the office. No matter where you might be, considering that in the world, if that's the main focus of the program that you're looking into, then you would get the opportunity to work with her.
The next steps are really just start the research process. I think the recommended program list is a great spot to start. Come the fall semester. You'll start seeing various events that the office will be hosting. Those are all posted on our main homepage education abroad website. Perhaps Vanessa can put that link up for you just so that you can find it, but just educationabroadcolostate.edu and you'll see the calendar and you'll be able to see lots of things.
Follow us on Instagram. We try and post photos that are all students admitted, and so the five photos that you see there, those are all taken by students abroad. CSU students, which is really great. We do do a photo contest every year, so if photography is something you're interested in and you do go broad kind of keep that in the back of your mind.
Vanessa Hayward
10:42:54 AM
https://international.colostate.edu/educationabroad/
Uhm, and then really we can open up the floor for questions. Perhaps we can see if Vanessa has a good enough connection to kind of come back on for y'all.
Feel free to type your questions in the chat box. A man we will either type the answers back or I will. I will answer him live unless Vanessa can kind of get back on depending on her Internet connection. The biggest thing that we do like to point out is the education abroad office is located in Laurel Hall which is on the Oval.
And so you know, just feel free to come by. It's open doors. We have peer advisors so students like yourself that can also help guide you through the process and we really hope that you will consider going abroad during your time at CS you.
So everyone I'm back. I hope you can hear me. Can you hear me Natalie?
Natalie, can you hear me?
Do we have any questions from folks?
10:44:09 AM
thank you, very informative
I would like to share that we will have a virtual education abroad fair this year and that's going to be September 2nd through 4th. It's, uh.
And sorry again, but thank you for hanging in there through all the technology issues. We sometimes have. Those as we're learning as everybody is kind of working in a work from home remote setting these days.
Was everybody able to kind of figure out how to work that recommended program list or with somebody not not able to find there to find it, or to find the list for their academic program that they're that they're going to be joining at CSU?
Elena Solano
10:45:18 AM
I am a transfer student that just graduated with an associate's degree. How long do I have to wait until I can go abroad?
Great, so we just had a question that came in. Um, thanks for asking and Elena. She said she's a transfer student that just graduated with an Associates Degree and how long does she have to wait until she can go abroad? So we usually like students to have their first year at CSU to get accustomed to the program before they go for a semester abroad. But we could definitely look at as early as winter break since you have a GPA from your.
Come from your Community College that we could look at or even we could look at spring break or summer of 2021 and so you know we'd like to get you out outdoor as soon as possible. If you really are wanting to incorporate an education abroad experience into your time at CSU, great question.
Grace Kirk
10:46:27 AM
How is the study abroad program being affected by the coronavirus?
Yeah, so grace just asked a great question on how is the study abroad program being affected by the coronavirus. Obviously it is being impacted since borders are being closed and travel is not.
Not what it is today as it might have been six months ago, and so CSU is staying on top of all information that is being that is being shared and so we do have a risk manager and we have a whole team that works on assessing risk to make sure both on the health and the safety side that it is. It is both healthy and safe, safe for our students to go abroad and so many programs did already have to be canceled for the fall semester. We still have some students that are lined up to be going for the fall.
As of today, obviously with coronavirus, the news is changing everyday, and so that's being taken into account. But if things are still are safe enough for a student to go, obviously it's country specific. It's not a sweeping across the board decision. We kind of are taking it one day at a time as information is released. Obviously, programs in New Zealand are not happening for the fall semester for us, and that's because New Zealand still has closed borders.
So in cases like that, it might be from the host country that were unable to send students, or it might be from the US end that it's just not safe enough to send students. So we're definitely keeping an eye on it. We've definitely seen a lot of students that were planning to go abroad in fall 2020 to shift their applications to spring 21. CSU is extremely collaborative across education abroad, and various academic departments, and so a lot of academic advisors in academic success.
Coordinators who will be meeting throughout your orientation process worked with education abroad office to make sure that students are able to switch this semester that they were planning on going abroad.
And kind of go from there just to make sure that students are staying on track for graduation, since that is our number one goal.
Great question, thanks for asking it.
And so the presentation was slated just to go to 10:45. I still have 10 minutes. If folks do want to stay on and have questions, I did want to give a few minutes since we had some tech issues there in the middle. But if you don't have any questions, I'm super excited that you joined us today. I know Vanessa is as well. We really hope that if you're a student joining us today that you really will consider going abroad.
And if you're a parent or a guest of a student that you'll really encourage your student to consider their options as Vanessa was discussing many barriers that students have kind of previously put in their mind, we really can get around those, whether it's academics, financials.
Finding the perfect fit program. Uhm, you know, if you have specific extracurriculars that you want to consider one story that I always like to share regarding extracurriculars, as I had a student who played on the lacrosse CSU club team and it was really important for him to still play lacrosse while he was abroad, so one his semester that he went abroad was really determined by not going this semester. That lacrosse is in season at CSU and two.
For him to be able to potentially join in locally on a team, he ended up going to prog and he joined a local traveling lacrosse team while he was there and so all of his all of his weekend travels that he did was around with centered around lacrosse tournaments with this newfound team that he
that he became a part of while he was abroad. And so I just I always find that just super inspiring that he was able to take something that he loved and still do it abroad. Still find a program that academically academically worked for him to stay on track for graduation and a program that was still financially feasable. So it's definitely possible. It might just take some research or some conversations with an education abroad coordinator, but that's what we're here for an so we really hope that we can find your best fit program as well.
Joanna Mosley
10:51:24 AM
Do you have to go to a country that has a program which includes your major?
And then Johanna just asked a really great great question. Do you have to go to a country that has your program and you don't? So some students that it's really important for them to go somewhere where they can still take their major courses. Other students they really want to use it as maybe an exploration semester, and so a common thing that I see is students will will choose a location based on heritage, so they might have ancestry to a country.
Or they might have, you know, two generations removed family or a grandmother grand father. You know that came from Italy and they really want to explore that side. And that's totally possible depending on your major that you choose will determine how much flexibility you have with free electives or general courses. And so, for example, on the business side, students have a lot of flexibility with free electives, so I've seen some students that have gone abroad just to take minor courses or just to take cultural based courses.
Um, and you know, not touch, not touch any other business courses and they were still able to graduate on time. And so yes, it's totally possible to go on a program that doesn't that does not include your major.
Great question. Join us. Thanks for asking it.
A common question I typically get is when's the best time to go abroad and this is really just going to depend on the student and kind of what one are you trying to do while you're abroad and to you know what's your program program of study. So as I mentioned, I work with business students.
And depending on which concentration or specialty is student, is kind of looking at will really determine when I think is kind of the best time for them to go abroad. So my students that are taking more prerequisite based specialties or concentrations I usually recommend earlier is better. So we might be looking as early as the fall of their sophomore year or their second year. So in this case would be fall 21 versus students that might be doing marketing which is really flexible abroad.
I usually recommend junior year might be a better fit for them. Uhm, I also have students who decide to go senior year. Um, they just never really thought it was feasible. And then they at the last minute decided to give it one good look and they realized it was feasible. So you can definitely go in your senior year. It might make things a little bit more complicated, or you might want to plan that out a little bit better.
Just to make sure that you don't have courses that have to be taken at CSU, which is which is possible in certain programs.
But it really just varies from student to student. Spring junior year has nationally become a very popular term for students to go abroad, but it doesn't mean it's the only term. One thing that I also like to recommend to students. If you are looking for cost saving approaches, is knowing that spring is a heavier semester for students to be abroad. It also means it's really difficult to be able to sub lease out your apartment if you are in an apartment by the time that you're going abroad.
And so sometimes it's easier to go abroad in the fall and then when you come back to campus on the spring, you have lots of options to kind of rent from various people that might be abroad in the spring. And so lots lots of rooms opening up and apartments opening up across Fort Collins for students to take advantage of.
If you're an athlete, or if you're planning to be part of Greek life, or you know that you really want to hold a leadership position in a club or an organization on campus, that might make it difficult for you to go abroad in a semester. Not impossible, but those are all things that we want students to kind of consider in there all around experience at CSU, and so that's one of the reasons that we offer the shorter term programs in case those might work better for a student, so.
I mean, I think the winter break programs are wonderful. Colorado doesn't have as bad of winters as other locations in the US, but who doesn't want to, you know? Kind of escape to a little bit warmer of acclimate for two weeks in January and kind of explore another culture. Meet a whole bunch of other CSU students that you otherwise never would have come across into earn academic credit at the same time. So winter break programs are, I think are really awesome and really unique opportunities.
Same thing with the spring break in the fall. Break up and then summers. Some students really just want to go for a quick two weeks, which is definitely feasible, and then other students might want to stay longer like 8 to 10 weeks. One thing that I always hear from students when coming back is that they wish they would have stayed longer so it's never a question of that. They wish they would have gone on a shorter program. All the students I've ever worked with have always said they wish they would have stayed longer so.
Um, a semester could seem very daunting as a very long amount of time, but you.
You won't regret it, and you'll want more time in those three four months that you are abroad will fly by very quickly.
I guess I can also share with you where I myself went up if folks are interested in that. Uhm, so a little bit about my background and kind of how I ended up in this field of international education on why sending students abroad, um, just brings me so much excitement. Enjoy an I do see it as a very life changing experience for most of my students.
I grew up in a military family, so I lived overseas for about 10 years. Growing up. My mom is also full German, so I was raised in a dual culture household and so started learning German at a young age and so that kind of sparked my initial interest in other languages and other cultures. So when I got to college, it wasn't a question of if I would study abroad. It was always a question of when since I knew it was definitely something that I wanted to include in my experience, and perhaps you're in the same boat.
And so I went on my first experience during UM sophomore year. I did a winter break program to Turkey and I absolutely fell in love with the country. Uhm, and then uhm I was studying Italian as a minor. As part of my International Studies degree. And so as a junior I spent a semester in Verona, Italy, which is in the northeast, an hour West of Venice, and then I ended up going on to Graduate School.
And kind of circle back to that initial love that I had from Turkey and I ended up getting my Masters degree in international affairs with a focus on the European Union an then I specifically focused on Turkey and Turkish language learning. And so I did nine months in my graduate work in Turkey, which was phenomenal. Unfortunately, Turkey is is not a great location for students to be studying abroad now. It's very different times from one. When I was in school. But Italy will always be.
A top destination along with Germany, France, Spain in the UK across the nation. Those are the top five most popular destinations. I like to try and encourage students to kind of look outside those five as well, if they're feeling comfort in that. A popular program for business students as of late has been Thailand. It's a very affordable program. It's safe, lots of cultural opportunities for students to engage in.
With that we are up on time and I'd see anymore. Can other questions coming through so I hope you learned at least one thing today and hopefully that one thing is it is definitely possible. Possible for you to study abroad and we hope you will set up an appointment with an education abroad coordinator. They are available throughout the whole summer. You can schedule an appointment to meet with them.
By emailing UM education abroad at Colo State.
Natalie Cartwright
11:01:40 AM
educationabroad@colostate.edu
Edu Ann I am putting that email address in the chat um and say that you are interested in going abroad. Um, perhaps you have an idea of where you want to go. If not, just let them know that you are exploring the idea. Thanks again for joining us today and we hope to welcome you to campus in late August and so have a wonderful summer. Let us know if you have any questions and thanks for joining us today by.
Joanna Mosley
11:02:06 AM
Thank you so much!