Last week, the Northeastern Office of Study Abroad Programs posted details on the Dialogue of Civilizations Web site for the upcoming summer semesters. Dialogues are just one of the many study abroad opportunities offered here, making the possibilities of intertwining co-op, classes and study abroad nearly endless.
In his State of the University Address last week, President Joseph Aoun said he wants to see more Northeastern students traveling to, working and studying in foreign countries. With the choice of more than 60 academic institutions all over the world, almost 50 Dialogue programs, internship and co-op opportunities abroad, as well as four different semesters (fall, spring and both summers) to do them during, students certainly should act on Aoun’s advice and take advantage of traveling while they can.
However, like many institutions at Northeastern, study abroad can quickly turn from an exciting time to an incredible headache. The price of programs, hassle of communicating with the study abroad office and transferring credit can be a complete turnoff to an otherwise amazing opportunity, and if the school truly wants more students to go abroad, these issues must be addressed.
For students who struggle financially, study abroad is a huge endeavor, and Northeastern doesn’t make this easy on their students. Programs are expensive, and other universities offer the same programs to their students for a cheaper price, sometimes by requiring students to take less credits. But Northeastern doesn’t give students that option.
Any fall or spring semester program abroad costs $22,275 for Northeastern students. The same program at American University of Cairo in Egypt costs $20,881 through Northwestern University. The same program at Bond University in Australia through Arcadia University costs $16,850. The John Cabot program in Italy costs $14,000 for Michigan State University students.
Even considering that the last two programs don’t include airfare, with a generous estimate of a few thousand for round-trip tickets, the prices still don’t match up to Northeastern.
Regardless of whether or not each institution offers the same amount of credit for each program, other universities are making traveling more affordable, and therefore more accessible to their students, than Northeastern is.
We all know Northeastern is an expensive school, but if a student is attending another university for a semester, shouldn’t we be paying their school’s tuition, not Northeastern’s tuition?
After the financial aspect of things are taken care of, there is the confusion of what is going to show up on your transcript, and when. It often takes months for study abroad courses to show up on students’ transcripts, making choosing classes and communicating with advisors difficult. And if you want to transfer a credit as something other than what it is originally intended to transfer as, there is the endless back and forth between the student, the study abroad office and the appropriate academic advisors and department members.
Finally, if Northeastern truly wanted more of their students to explore the world, the administration wouldn’t make it so difficult to obtain credit for study abroad programs offered by other universities, like Semester at Sea offered by the University of Virginia.
Northeastern is becoming an increasingly global university, and offers its students more terrific opportunities to see the world than most other institutions. But not every student can afford the additional expenses that accompany the already huge tuition of studying abroad. And no student wants to have to worry about getting credit for classes they took months ago. These things take away from the amazing experience of studying abroad, and Northeastern would be doing their students a service by working on their behalf instead of working for the school’s bank account.
