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For Release: Dec 21, 2006
Study Abroad Changes Global Outlook for Students
Winners Announced in Student Diplomat Essay Competition
WASHINGTON, December 21, 2006 – American college students who step outside their comfort zone to travel and study in other countries bring home the skills and insights necessary for success in today’s workforce. To highlight the valuable role study abroad plays in connecting students with the world, NAFSA: Association of International Educators and Abroad View, the global education magazine for students, this fall sponsored the first annual Student Diplomat Essay Competition. Through study abroad, students gain a deeper understanding of global issues. Their education is enhanced by an experience that too few Americans have. But, study abroad is more than a valuable academic experience – it is a national imperative.
Students from across the country who recently participated in an undergraduate study abroad program were invited to put into words their experiences of how study abroad changed them as individuals and as Americans, contributed to their global understanding, and helped to shape their world view.
This year’s winning essay is a moving reflection on building cross-cultural bridges by overcoming fear and stereotypes during a study abroad experience. The essay’s author, Kevin Adler, is a senior at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. He writes, “Due to this openness, this propensity to meet and learn and understand rather than ignore, I had a much richer experience while abroad. Stereotypes on both sides dissolved: the image of me as a self-interested and rude American, and the attitude that others are aggressive anti-American fanatics.”
This year’s runner-up, Matthew Linden, a senior at the Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, submitted a compelling essay on discovering “American-ness” through study abroad. “They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Only when I no longer had the luxury of taking my own culture and language for granted, only when I mentally set aside my U.S. citizenship and looked at my country, at my nationality, and at my identity through the lens of life in Germany could I truly appreciate what it meant to be an American.”
Students like Matthew and Kevin offer a face of the United States in their host culture through their study abroad experience. They are student diplomats, representatives of their country and their university abroad. They return home, citizens of the world, with a foundation for global competence and cultural understanding and a commitment to furthering that understanding throughout their lives.
Currently, however, students like Kevin and Matthew make up only about one percent of all American college undergraduates. December 31, 2006, marks the end of the congressionally designated “Year of Study Abroad,” but there is much work left to be done to make study abroad the norm, not the exception, in U.S. higher education. A national initiative such as the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Program, which would create an innovative partnership between government and higher education to dramatically increase the number of American students studying abroad, is needed to ensure that the next generation of American leaders is prepared for today’s global challenges.
Students from across the country who recently participated in an undergraduate study abroad program were invited to put into words their experiences of how study abroad changed them as individuals and as Americans, contributed to their global understanding, and helped to shape their world view.
This year’s winning essay is a moving reflection on building cross-cultural bridges by overcoming fear and stereotypes during a study abroad experience. The essay’s author, Kevin Adler, is a senior at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. He writes, “Due to this openness, this propensity to meet and learn and understand rather than ignore, I had a much richer experience while abroad. Stereotypes on both sides dissolved: the image of me as a self-interested and rude American, and the attitude that others are aggressive anti-American fanatics.”
This year’s runner-up, Matthew Linden, a senior at the Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, submitted a compelling essay on discovering “American-ness” through study abroad. “They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Only when I no longer had the luxury of taking my own culture and language for granted, only when I mentally set aside my U.S. citizenship and looked at my country, at my nationality, and at my identity through the lens of life in Germany could I truly appreciate what it meant to be an American.”
Students like Matthew and Kevin offer a face of the United States in their host culture through their study abroad experience. They are student diplomats, representatives of their country and their university abroad. They return home, citizens of the world, with a foundation for global competence and cultural understanding and a commitment to furthering that understanding throughout their lives.
Currently, however, students like Kevin and Matthew make up only about one percent of all American college undergraduates. December 31, 2006, marks the end of the congressionally designated “Year of Study Abroad,” but there is much work left to be done to make study abroad the norm, not the exception, in U.S. higher education. A national initiative such as the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Program, which would create an innovative partnership between government and higher education to dramatically increase the number of American students studying abroad, is needed to ensure that the next generation of American leaders is prepared for today’s global challenges.
