I believe very much in how international education is presented and packaged to institutions, students and parents – not to mention how it is structured on the other side of the workd where the students are going.

The old models of language and area studies based experiences are few and far between as the franchise has been expanded. Students and institutions are shopping for a laundry list of "transferable courses" that are almost carbon copies of the courses taught on the home campus. Furthermore now one can take all those pesky core requirements abroad – and often times not have to worry about the grade if you have the good fortune to just transfer credit.

Talking about program models – as being on the "other side" it is imposed on foreign schools by partner schools and 3rd party providers to offer services in line with the home campus, usually much more than any home campus offers for its students when you think of the ratio of students to staff. Do increased services actually make it more difficult for students to "own" their experience and have an increased level of "integration" ? I say yes.

Another comment that could have been used: "Uh, like my teacher like has like an accent?" or in an e-mail of concern from a parent " we are worried that Bobby Jo is being indoctrinated in the ways of the Roman church with all this talk of Jesus and the Madonna in her Renaissance Art course.."

The question is what is the student supposed to be doing when they are abroad? Is it that there are far too many prerequisites put on the majority of students who are studying abroad that are ill-equipped, especially in terms of language and cultural skills. What can we really expect to happen in 15 weeks?

Thanks for sharing!!