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Study abroad isn't just for the liberal arts any more.
by T.A Bennett
IT students are redefining the stereotype of students abroad with international experiences that are adding value to their education and adding marketability to their post-graduation job search.
The technical quality of an IT education gives students a competitive edge in employment, but in the work world, students will face a new challenge: internationalization. The high number of foreign students in IT is a reflection of the larger employmen t population its students will find after graduation. Many IT graduates will be working with people who learned English as a second language. Travel and postings overseas will also challenge IT graduates. IT Dean Peter Hudleston says, "In the global marke tplace, where people get moved from country to country, there's a good chance of technical employees being moved around.
International employment trends are prompting IT students to include overseas experiences as part of their curriculum. Ge Thao, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, spent two quarters studying at Minnesota State University-Akita in Japan wit h fellow IT student A-Yia Thoj, a junior in mechanical engineering. Thao's interest in the Japanese language expanded to a cultural interest with a professional twist. "I wanted to go abroad and experience how the Japanese environment is more technologica lly based. I had heard and read this, and I wanted to see if it was true," he says.
The Akita program allowed him to enroll in Japanese language classes, experience the culture, and complete some of the liberal education requirements needed for his ME degree in Minnesota. "It's probably the best way to solve this liberal education req uirement -- like killing two birds with one stone. Once there, you have a different way of doing things," says Thao. "Instead of reading textbooks, you do different things that help you learn. I could watch a Japanese television show for my language class.
Thao had no Japanese language skills when he arrived in Japan, but because classes were held in English and his fellow Japanese students had studied English all through their schooling, language did not present a problem. "If I had a question on my hom ework I asked my Japanese roommate and he could help me out. In their society, they study English really well, and their grammar is good. It's the part about speaking and listening that gets to them. They see it as a fast pace," Thao says.
Living in a dormitory with Japanese suitemates gave Thao a relatively easy entry into Japanese culture and a set of ready-made friends. "I was thrown into the Japanese society quickly," he says. "It also exposed me to the Japanese way of thinking, and even though I'm not an expert on Japanese culture or society, it helped me out in how to interact with them. And in that way, with the world being internationalized and everything, it helps a lot for in the future when everyone is going to work together.
A-Yia Thoj, Thao's friend form the University who also participated in the Akita program, was attracted to the program by a strong cultural interest. "I went because I wanted to meet people from another culture, to share my culture, and to learn theirs ," Thoj says. In addition, Thoj also saw the internationalization factor. "I wanted to make international ties and in a sense make the world a smaller place for me.
Although he believes internationalization will play a key role in the work environment, Thoj stresses the philosophical aspects of study abroad. "I believe cross-cultural exchanges allow a person to grow both emotionally and mentally. A lot of times, w e, as students, get too caught up in our studies, and we forget about things like other cultures and foreign lands," he says. "It opened my eyes to the fact that everything I knew is not necessarily valid just because it works here. It doesn't always work in Japan." Thoj says this experience has helped him see other viewpoints. "I realize that we, as people, tend to interpret things in our own ways, especially when communicating. But we don't usually pay attention to what it's saying to our listeners.
Both Thao and Thoj enthusiastically advocate study and travel abroad but acknowledged many students' concerns about cost. Thoj says he thinks students might be more willing to go abroad if they didn't have to pay the entire cost themselves. "I think it 's especially true for U of M students. I mean, I came here because I didn't have the money to go to Carleton College. I believe that a lot of the students here are in pretty much the same situation as I am. Money counts," he says.
But cost often turns out to be less of a problem than students might think. In order to use financial aid, the University requires only that students register abroad for the same number of credits that they would be taking if they were here on campus. In fact, financial awards may even be increased to support study abroad programs. Thao found that studying in Akita was only slightly more expensive for him than attending the University during the same period would have been.
Gregory Van Heel, a geological engineering major, spent fall 1996 with eight other University students in the Denmark International Studies program (DIS) in Copenhagen. "During my exchange, the civil engineering department paid for half of my costs, an d a matching scholarship was offered by the Danish school. Essentially, all of my incurred costs -- including airfare -- came out to approximately what I would have paid for tuition here at the U of M," Van Heel says.
IT Dean Peter Hudleston says that IT would like to see more of its students take advantage of study abroad programs. "It's important for people to be aware of the differences between cultures," Hudleston says. To achieve this, IT is partially funding t he work of Global Campus employee Michelle Cumming and others involved in the project this year. The IT Study Abroad Project is an effort to identify, package, and promote study abroad opportunities best suited to IT students. "We're working with each of the undergraduate studies advisers to determine which universities overseas will work best for their students," Cumming says. Advising materials are already available for civil and geological engineering, chemistry, and geology. Cumming expects the list to be comprehensive for all IT majors by the end of the quarter.
"What we're thinking is that IT students don't think of study abroad as an important part of the undergraduate experience the way that a CLA student might," Cumming says.
Statistics support Cumming assertions. Twelve IT students participated in study abroad programs last year. Only three of those took coursework relating to their major. The IT Project aims to increase these numbers by adding what Cumming sees as an IT s tudent's main concern: finishing a degree in a timely manner. The key to accomplishing this is to find programs and coursework overseas that will fulfill the same requirements as University coursework. This way, students will not lose time by going abroad .
"It's kind of a relationship thing, too," Cumming says, "The professors in IT here need to be able to trust that, if they send one of their students over there in their junior year, they'll come back as a senior as ready to take their classes as a juni or who stayed on campus. There's going to be a lot of back and forth and some test students.
The desire to pursue technical coursework as part of an overseas experience is echoed by Michelle Ehrenberg, an electrical engineering major who participated in the International Program in Toledo, Spain. "I think IT students would be more apt to study abroad if they could take their technical classes over there. I think that most IT students are too worried about getting their technical classes in to broaden their ideas," Ehrenberg says. "I went to Spain over the summer so as not to screw up any of my sequences. In doing so, I probably missed out on some valuable work experience, but I would never trade the experience I had in Spain," she says.
Few students would. Most participants of study abroad say it was one of the best experiences of their life. Now the IT Project through the Global Campus is geared toward making it easier for IT students to have those experiences.
