Student creates survival guide for future study abroad students
Updated: January 27, 2012
After spending two-and-a-half months living homeless while studying abroad in Bordeaux, France, Beth Forsythe realized the OU study abroad program might need a little help.
When she returned to the U.S., the letters senior began working with OU Education Abroad Director Alice Kloker to fill the gaps in the program that had led to her predicament.
This collaboration resulted in an eight-page “survival guide” for students travelling to Bordeaux, featuring important details such as how to get a dorm or find housing.
“This project was started and run by me because I saw a need,” Forsythe said. “I have friends who studied abroad who said they needed it as well.”
Forsythe’s guide also includes information on medical care, general safety, transportation and cultural and shopping tips. Forsythe’s goal is to address problems OU’s education abroad services sometimes miss during orientation, she said.
“I wanted something more than just, ‘Study abroad is really good,’” Forsythe said.
“[Forsythe] provided our office with valuable feedback on what we can be doing to better prepare students to study abroad,” Kloker said in an email.
Procedures in the department have changed since Foresythe’s return, Kloker said, and students now are informed before they travel of what resources will be available while abroad.
While assisting the department, Forsythe also has worked with study abroad adviser Brooke Hammer during the orientation process for students heading overseas next fall.
While her guide has yet to be integrated into the sessions, Forsythe’s contact information has been provided to students, and some have contacted her for help.
“I spoke to one girl and gave her the study guide,” Forsythe said. “I think it really helped her.”
Hammer has served as a study abroad adviser only since September 2011, but during her time on campus, she began to write her own survival guides.
“The guide includes what to do before you leave, how grades work there, how to get your medication if you need it there, what you should pack, how to get from the airport to your destination,” Hammer said.
Hammer’s guide includes information about on- and off-campus housing as well, she said.
“I don’t know who [Forsythe’s] adviser was, but as far as I know, we typically facilitate on-campus housing,” Hammer said. “Maybe when she went [to Bordeaux], they did that and she declined, and they left her on her own to find an apartment.”
Hammer’s guide for students headed to Bordeaux is just her first, she said.
In time, she would like to produce guides for the other regions she oversees, including Spain, Oceania, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
“[The guides] will be passed out before orientations,” Hammer said. “We like to send them to students already accepted into study abroad.”
Hammer’s attempt to inform also is helping expand the number of students studying abroad, she said.
The President’s International Travel Fellowship, created by OU President David Boren, requires students to help promote study abroad after they return to OU. One way students can meet that requirement is to contribute to the guide.
Forsythe hopes to expand her own survival guide initiative to other countries, she said. She originally interviewed students who traveled to other countries but found she could not create guides as in depth as her own.
Now, she is searching for students who can talk about their experiences in depth to write the guides for other countries.
Comments
openminded1989 3 weeks, 2 days ago
As someone who has studied abroad, I would like to say that the Study Abroad office was amazing in all aspects. They helped me and my parents from beginning to end. This sounds just a little fishy when she mentions she was "homeless". Define that? Did she refuse to live on campus? When I asked my adviser about off campus housing, I was specifically told I would have to search on my own! So why would anyone do that. Did she live on a street? Hotels? Hostel?
I am sure her guides will be helpful to future students who study abroad to France but as anyone can tell you, France is not the easiest country to navigate and the administration there is the issue not the OU Study Abroad office.
Sorry her experience sounded so dreadful but I find something is missing here. Did she ever contact the OU office and talk to someone? I did and they put me in contact with the right people at my host university. Easy enough... no reason to be left "homeless".
commentah 2 weeks, 3 days ago
Yeah, I'm having a tough time believing this girl was homeless. I'm abroad right now and EA has been with me every step of the way. If something had been messed up with my housing, they would have helped me fix it immediately. Brooke's guide was awesome, but things like housing were set up way before I got it. Like openminded, I have lots of questons for Forsythe.
beehappy024 1 week, 6 days ago
Hey guys--
I'm Beth Forsythe, and I just wanted to clarify a few things, since the author of this article wasn't so clear; I was offered housing on campus, and I refused it. The problem with on-campus housing is that you are stuck in a room by yourself, often in a dormitory which is reserved for international students, most of whom will be speaking english as their common language. One of my goals in going to France was to become proficient in French, and I was disappointed that EA did not do anything to facilitate my living anywhere but the dorms. There were plenty of students from other universities who had home-stays arranged with French families, there were others who had been directed to resources for finding roommates in the city-- I did not have access to any of those resources, and had to find them on my own. And to say I was "homeless" is a little bit of an overstatement: I crashed on couches, slept in living rooms, lived in the guest house of a friend's aunt for a few weeks.
To clarify, Brooke Hammer was not my advisor, and since I have been back and made her acquaintance, I can say that Brooke has been wonderful, she is really taking a pro-active stance towards giving students practical information to prepare for their experience abroad. But I really had problems when I was there-- when I arrived at the airport in Bordeaux, I didn't know how to get from there into town. When I found my university, I was informed that my classes wouldn't actually begin for another month, and I had been given the wrong date for the start of the semester. There were just a lot of information that I felt I should have had before I left, and didn't, and that is all I am trying to do with the survival guides, is ask students what problems they had and how they fixed them, so we can save future students the difficulty.
And finally, I don't want to give the impression that my time in France was dreadful, it wasn't at all. It was the greatest year of my life, I ended up in a beautiful apartment with two wonderful French girls, I became fluent in French, I made lifelong friends, I traveled throughout Europe-- I even went back to France for a month this Christmas to visit! I only wished that I had had access to the resources I needed at the beginning for things to go more smoothly.
Hope this answers some questions! Elizabeth Forsythe
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