My interview with a recent college graduate

Today I had arranged a meeting with a woman who works at my step-mother’s school. My sister and I met with Kelsey Patterson. Kelsey is a biochemistry major graduate from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. She talked with us about college in general and her experiences. I asked her about studying abroad because she mentioned having friends who had done that while at UTK. She explained that UTK has a very welcoming and informative international studies office. She said that there were emails about studying abroad meetings sent out almost every other day. So it sounds like UTK is a very eager school to get people out there studying overseas.

Lately I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not I’d still like to study abroad as I research colleges. I feel like it’s something I’m interested in but I’m not sure I’d want to go study overseas my freshmen year in college. I would consider it my sophomore year maybe. It all would depend on how my classes transferred and what courses were offered.

Kelsey pointed me to UTK’s website about their studying abroad programs. The schools has a lot of different types of programs that students can participate in. UTK offers direct enrollment programs, UTK faculty led programs, and exchange programs. I personally would be most interested in a UTK led program more so than a direct enrollment only because I could stay enrolled into the university in America. UTK isn’t the only school that offers these opportunities. Many other of the larger universities in Tennessee have large abroad programs for their students to partake in.

Recently in my research I’ve been finding that I am kind of becoming less interested in abroad study or more undecided about it. I am still interested in travel and learning about other cultures and places and I am still keeping studying abroad an option, it is just not a top priority. I feel this way mainly because of the way classes transfer over and the fact that you have to wait until the next semester starts in the country you’re studying in which isn’t always the same time as the school you attend in the U.S. I assume or from what I’ve read and heard, you have to put all your activities at your home university on hold while you are out studying abroad. This makes it a little difficult too. I think if I chose to go my second year of college before I started into a major or harder classes then I would like to go study abroad for at least a single semester. I still desire to go abroad but I feel like I’m more aware of what it takes and some of the more difficult things about it now from my research.

Sources:

"International Students and Scholars Services." The Programs Abroad Office. University of Tennessee, Web. 30 Apr. 2015. <https://studyabroad.utk.edu/>.

Patterson, Kelsey. Personal interview. 30 Apr. 2015.

 

 

More Things about Abroad Studies

Today is was looking at various studying abroad related articles on a particular travel blog that I found interesting to me called Virtual Wayfarer. I read an article about how often people mess up when abroad and why. Most reasons seemed to be about general stupidity, unawareness, and sometimes cultural insensitivity.

The blogger tells a story about a woman who entered a pub in Ireland and ordered an alcoholic drink called an Irish Car Bomb. The waiter in the bar did not serve her at first and moved to the next customer. The article explains that this was a faux pas because of Ireland’s past of violent terrorist attacks prominently with car bombs. I myself was not aware of Ireland’s history, or at least in that depth. The blogger gave the example that it would be equivalent to ordering a “9/11” in an American bar.

This article helped further a point that I already knew which is: It’s very, very important to be aware of the culture and history of the area that you travel to or study in. If you don’t respect the culture or history of a place then you might not make as many acquaintances or not learn as much as you could from your time abroad. Learning the history and culture is part of learning abroad so having a bit of knowledge before you step of the plane at wherever you’re going will always help you. So researching the area you are going to visit is important when you want to avoid appearing culturally insensitive and if you want to appear to have an initiative to learn from another culture.

I was also looking at an article that discussed the gender gap in studying abroad? I found it interesting but the majority of students abroad are female. The article said that the ratio was 66% female and 34% male. The article explains that it is likely due to the lack of marketing to male students and sometimes the lack of positive reinforcement for males. Also there is a huge deficit of differences in ethnicity in studying abroad numbers. Most abroad students are Caucasian and there are not very many African American, Hispanic Americans, or Asian Americans that are studying abroad. I think that it should be a goal to better promote the opportunity to study abroad to more people and to find and solve some of the things that may be preventing certain groups from international study.

 

Sources:

Berger, Alex. "Avoid Wrecking Your Study Abroad Experience." Web log post. Http://virtualwayfarer.com/. WordPress, 10 Sept. 2012. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://virtualwayfarer.com/avoid-wrecking-your-study-abroad-experience/.

Berger, Alex. "Men, It Is Long Past Time to Study Abroad." Web log post. Http://virtualwayfarer.com/. WordPress, 7 Jan. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://virtualwayfarer.com/men-it-is-long-past-time-to-study-abroad/.

Kaufmann, Karen M. "The Gender Gap." PS: Political Science and Politics 39.3 (2006): 447-53. Www.aifsabroad.com. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. http://www.aifsabroad.com/advisors/pdf/Gender_Gap_Shirley.pdf.

Video Blog

So this is my video blog. It took forever to figure out how to upload and it's pretty bad but at least it's done.