Current Information on Study Abroad

Fulfilling Dreams: Study Abroad Programs Enrich Learning and Life!

What is the Study Abroad Program?

The Study Abroad Program is one of Rhode Island College’s unheralded treasures. It is the means by which a student may take a summer, a semester or a year to go abroad to study, travel and earn credit towards their baccalaureate degree. Most colleges offer similar programs to students, but generally we at Rhode Island College are able to beat them on choice, quality and cost. Because we send only between 50-75 students overseas each year, we are able to tailor their study abroad experience to their particular needs and interests. We conduct interviews with each applicant and find a country, culture, university, language of instruction, and academic program that directly link to their major field of study and proposed career trajectory.

All academic credit earned by RIC students overseas is pre-approved by the Director of Study Abroad Programs (this year, his name is Brian Brophy-Baermann) and relevant department chairs and, therefore, easily transferable to our students’ degree programs. If the opportunity to study abroad is an important factor in any student’ s college selection, he or she will find many options at Rhode Island College. Our Study Abroad Office provides advice on appropriate destinations and how to locate a quality program at a reasonable cost. A remarkable aspect of studying abroad is that there are truly affordable options. When I served as Study Abroad Director from 1996-2002, I never found a student who I could not place because of cost constraints. I often remarked to prospective program participants that studying for a semester in Europe, Africa or Latin America can be considerably more affordable than spending a term up the road at Providence College.

Studying abroad is a rare and special opportunity to explore other cultures and societies. Although students might take courses required for their majors (in order to enrich and gain alternative perspectives on their chosen disciplines), the experience offers them the chance to experience something outside their principal field of study… simply because it interests or challenges them. Many of our students return with a passion for a foreign language or a deeper concern for international relations. After all, most RIC degree programs offer opportunities to students to enrich their core or required classes with cognates and free electives. Just because you are a business major does not preclude you from studying painting in Florence during a spring semester.

For many of our students, gaining fluency in a second language is a primary goal. Total language immersion courses in Spanish-speaking countries have become increasingly popular. Dr. Olga Juzyn, RIC’s Chair of Modern Languages, offers a quality, affordable, program in Mexico during the winter break and the summer session. In recent years, we have sent dozens of students to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Spain and several Central and South American countries, primarily for language acquisition. Whatever their motivation for traveling, I strongly encourage our students to append a period of “free exploration” to enrich their academic experiences. As director, I used to receive emails from students who had climbed mountains, trekked backwater trails, sailed fresh-water lakes, toured ancient monasteries, and made photographic portfolios of ancient architecture in more countries than I could easily count.

Pre-program planning is the essential prerequisite to a rewarding study abroad experience. Not everyone has a clear idea of where they want to travel or what they want to study when they get there. The Study Abroad Office can help students to set priorities, build on academic strengths, enrich their current degree program, and tailor an experience that will meet their needs and fit their pocketbook. Rhode Island College supports them through their own web and library research process to identify the program that is just right, and then assists them in negotiating the bureaucratic labyrinths—passports, visas, program applications, course authorizations, budgets, travel arrangements—that are a necessary part of the adventure so that, once the plane leaves the ground, everything that follows proceeds smoothly.

Why Study Abroad… and Who Studies Abroad Anyway?

In Rhode Island we are fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world. For most of us, the Ocean State is a wonderful place to call home. After all, you cannot fail to notice how many students visit the cities of Newport and Providence every year. Why do people choose to visit our state? Any place is going to have its own list of unique characteristics, but the bottom line is simply the satisfaction and sense of discovery that educational travel brings. So one reason to study abroad is to embrace the unfamiliar. In so doing, you reach beyond the predictable in yourself and discover qualities and abilities that you never knew you had. In short, students learn as much about themselves as they learn about the culture in which they become immersed.

That said, studying abroad can be as “foreign” or familiar as one chooses. By doing some painless research, study plans can embrace locations fairly close to home (Canada or Mexico) or on the far side of the world (China or Japan). The elements of discovery are to be found even in the modern cities of other English-speaking countries. For example, among our students’ most popular destinations are Dublin, London and Sydney. Whatever the destination, one’s body of knowledge grows and one’s personal world-view is enriched.

As Rhode Island College students share their own educational and cultural backgrounds with new friends in their chosen “host” countries, they find a greater depth of understanding about the United States and their own place in the world. The Study Abroad Office at Rhode Island College believes that educational travel must begin as a journey of self-discovery and self-motivated research as much as a discovery of foreign lands. In order to do justice to ourselves and others in an increasingly complex and globally inter-dependent society, RIC students express a desire to cultivate an understanding of the world… and how the United States fits into that world. For all that we learn in the lecture hall, we need to reach out—perhaps in 2008 more than at any time in this country’s history—and experience directly the shifting political, economic, educational, social and cultural landscapes of our planet.

So, who studies abroad? Anyone with a desire to. Anyone who is willing to put in the time to avail themselves of the Study Abroad Program and RIC’s greatest resource: its faculty. With a small investment of time to do the research and prepare the groundwork, our students put together rewarding programs of study and educational travel experiences. Most overseas programs have fair GPA requirements or special prerequisite subjects to take. There is a wide range of program choices, offered by nonprofit educational consortia, U.S. institutions of higher education, government agencies, and individual foreign colleges and universities. Students from every RIC academic department, major and program and from every year of their undergraduate experience study abroad. The traditional notion of the “junior year abroad” has faded to such an extent that students today travel at the stage of their studies that best fits their needs.

All prospective study abroad students are made aware that putting together a study abroad program is a process. It takes time to come together, but come together it does. Students should not be deterred be the idea of investing some serious research time. Of course, we want them to learn as much as possible about their chosen destination, its culture and learning environment, but this can be accomplished in a few hours a week, during the months prior to their departure. The preparation is not overwhelming and should be a lot of fun…. and the Study Abroad Office is here to help students every step of the way. We have a fine study abroad resource library here on campus, the world wide web hosts sites for well over 1,000 study abroad programs around the world, and our own faculty, staff and administrators at Rhode Island College love to talk about where they have been and are generally thrilled to share their insights with students.

In addition to the multitude of programs offered through outside organizations, Rhode Island College is directly affiliated with several overseas institutions. Among them, we have ties to the United Kingdom through RIC’s own “London Course” (which now embraces side visits to Paris and Budapest) and the aforementioned language institute in southern Mexico. The College also participates in the New England/Quebec College Exchange Program, through which a RIC student may attend any member university in the Province of Quebec, while paying no more than their RIC tuition. Through our exchange program with St. Martin’s College in Lancaster, England, it is possible for education students to take approved classes and do their student teaching in the United Kingdom.

The financial cost of studying abroad

Once a student has decided he or she wants to study abroad, the first order of business is figuring out how to make the dream a financial reality. Obviously, the cost of each student’s individualized plan will be determined by length of stay, destination, program fees, course of study, and so forth. Reality sets in when a student realizes that her or his “dream program” costs $15,000 for one semester. The study abroad director’s job is to find the student something that fills most needs, but for a more manageable cost. Offering choices is one way to accomplish this. Rather than blowing a student’s entire savings, grandma’s rainy day bonds, and the year’s financial aid allocation on one semester, the College attempts to find each student’s real priorities, and then to calibrate his or her program of study so that those priorities are addressed first. Student financial aid can be used to make studying abroad more realistic for many.

As long as students join an accredited overseas program, study full-time, and have their courses pre-approved for transfer back into their RIC degrees, most financial aid is “portable” for studying abroad. The resident expert on campus in this regard is Janet O’Connor, Associate Director of Student Financial Aid, who has worked with hundreds of students to help them realize their study abroad goals without breaking the bank.

Many students find they can obtain loans or grants, even if they are not currently receiving financial aid. The maximum amount is approximately $6,500.00 per year for a dependent student. An independent student may be eligible for up to $11,000.00 per year. Many federal grant programs can also be applied toward studying abroad. We always remind students, however, that if they are out of the country for just one semester or the summer, there is still the rest of the year at Rhode Island College to consider (we want our tuition and fees paid, too!).

Private scholarships are a precious, though sometimes underused, resource. Rhode Island College students are fortunate to be the beneficiaries of a Study Abroad Scholarship Fund established by Professor Emeritus of History, Ridgway F. Shinn and his wife, Rissie, some 18 years ago. Held in perpetuity by the Rhode Island College Foundation, the Ridgway F. Shinn, Jr. Study Abroad Fund provides competitive scholarships for 1-4 students each year solely for the purpose of studying abroad. Students must submit an application, along with an essay and letters of recommendation, early in January. Cash awards are announced annually in late-February or early March. This private scholarship is available only to RIC students. Students can find out more about this special fund, and all aspects of studying abroad through Rhode Island College, by contacting the Study Abroad Office.

Wherever and whenever you choose to go, plan well and make sure you have a truly rewarding experience.