It’s Study Abroad Fair Season! Students are being ushered to their respective unions in droves. They shuffle among institutional agreements, third-party providers, stories of transformative experiences, and glossy handouts and marketing swag. What are students hoping to find? What are educators hoping to encourage? How will we know that the learning was meaningful?  The guest post below offers some reflective thinking on a provocative video created by two Amizade interns last year.

One editorial note before we begin: responsible, deeply engaging, and educationally meaningful programs occur everywhere. The biting wit that is central to the video should push us again to ask what we are seeking and encouraging in international education – and how we will know when it occurs.

By Missy Gluckmann

A few weeks ago, I googled “shit study abroad students say” after seeing the brilliant “Shit New Yorkers Say” video sensation.  I was hoping someone would do a version of this for study abroad – and today, in my inbox, it magically appeared!

(Side note: The students who made this video did call it “Stuff Study Abroad Students Say.” I am honoring the “Shit People Say” series by renaming this video with the appropriate “bad” word.)

Now watch this clever video! Laugh. Roll your eyes. Be sad. Smile.  Do whatever feels right for you.  Then read the rest of this post:

Did you enjoy that? Was it hard to watch? Did any of this sound familiar?

It sure did to me.  Four colleges under my belt and I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard these statements. They come from the young voices of (US) Americans from an incredibly ethnocentric country (see this previous Melibee post), one that is slapping together study abroad programs faster than many would like to admit.  Many are revenue driven and poorly designed, leading to students belting out statements like the ones in the video.  (Please don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of schools and 3rd party providers that put great care into study abroad program design and learning outcomes.  But many – let’s face it – don’t. )

The timing of this video really struck me. Yesterday I had the honor of facilitating an online workshop with Dr. Eric Hartman on Global Service Learning– and it couldn’t have been more timely.  Dr. Hartman spoke of the importance of partnership, culture, careful learning outcomes, mutual respect, addressing our ethnocentricity prior to departure., etc.  The gap between great global service learning program delivery and the “run of the mill” study abroad experience is clear.  These students, in my opinion, did a remarkable job of capturing that delta in this video.

This video will serve as a beautiful new resource for pre-departure, orientation, re-entry programs, classroom discussions and academic programs (international education administration/intercultural studies.)  It has so many applications!

What are your thoughts about this video?  How might you envision it being utilized? What did you appreciate about it? What frustrated you about it?  Let’s get some dialogue going about this subject.

Let me close by extending my heartfelt thanks to the Amizade students for creating not only this video, but the opportunity for all of us to reflect on how we contribute to the statements you have highlighted.  Once again, students are providing teaching opportunities.  Does it get any better than that?

– See more at: http://melibeeglobal.com/2012/02/sht-study-abroad-students-say/#sthash.B1fDUflf.dpuf

********************************************************************************

Missy Gluckmann brings more than twenty years of international education experience to her leadership at Melibee Global and support of A Better Abroad. We re-post these reflections here with her permission. We thank her for the opportunity and for her energetic field provocation and leadership.