Penn State is increasingly embracing short-term study abroad programs as students seem to be gravitating toward more flexible global options.
Recent statistics included for the first time in the University Office of Global Programs' overall counts have revealed that short-term study abroad programs are becoming a popular alternative to the traditional year long or semester-long programs.
While Penn State announced a 17 percent increase in study abroad programs, the true statistical increase was mostly because the university is now counting embedded programs, which are those that are incorporated into the requirements for a class and are set up by a Penn State professor.
"The national trend is towards shorter and shorter study abroad programs, so Penn State is falling in line with that trend," said John Keller, special assistant to the vice provost for global programs for Penn State.
Keller described short-term programs as being a part of a more "flexible" system, and such programs are usually more focused on the student's curriculum.
The start of most embedded programs is due solely to faculty initiative, said Paul Shaffner, the assistant to the director of education abroad.
"Professors are seeing the value of these programs," he said. "And the university is definitely encouraging them."
Shaffner described different factors that students may prefer about short-term program, the first being flexibility for students whose regimented majors may not allow time to study abroad.
"They don't have to be away from Penn State's campus for an entire year or semester, and they still have the opportunity to travel to some degree," he said.
Another reason for the trend toward shorter programs is due to a decrease in overall cost as opposed to longer programs.
Keller also said the current state of the economy does not seem to be a huge deterrent to students who wish to study abroad.
"Somehow people are considering this important," he said, "important enough to spend money during tough times to do it."
The College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State seems to have students embracing the shorter study abroad experience.
Marilyn McPheron, the study abroad coordinator for the College of Agricultural Sciences, said she has been promoting study abroad programs within her college since she started working at Penn State in 2001.
That year, she found it troubling that at the time only .5 percent of agricultural science students at Penn State had international experience.
Now, the faculty within the college is working to make studying abroad for these students feasible. McPheron said she is very excited about some of the opportunities that have been created.
"It gives students an idea of what it's like in an international setting, but what we didn't expect was for students to get so much out of short-term programs because they are so focused on their major and they can cram a lot of experience in that time," she said.
McPheron added that the college is also doing its best to make these experiences affordable by carefully planning every detail of the trips and budgeting before promoting them to students.
"We know exactly where they stay, what the itinerary is, and what the cost will be," she said. "They can't go home and promote to their parents if they don't know the concrete information."
Now that the college has made these short-term opportunities accessible to students, the number of students that choose to study abroad is up to 12 percent among agricultural science majors.
"Students come back and say three things," she said: "This changes my life, I get my major, and I know what I want to do with my career."
Erica Dreibelbis (sophomore-environmental resource management) is one student who said she benefited greatly from a short-term program.
Dreibelbis went abroad to Kenya to work on the agricultural team on a trip that was actually an engineering based program. She said she worked to build tunnels and irrigation systems, a project that was also geared toward providing job skills to locals.
"They were gaining the skills about these technologies and learning these technologies right alongside us," she said.
Although the program was not technically an embedded program because going abroad was not a required element of a course, Dreibelbis said she was one of theose students who volunteered to go abroad overseas with her professors.
She added that she learned how to appreciate her education and how to deal with culture from abroad.
"You can never gain that kind of experience in the class room."
