With reduced COVID-19 restrictions, 2022-23 school year marks further expansion of offerings for Rollins International Programs Office.
This year there are several new opportunities Free. This includes programs in Tunisia, Austria, England, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago.
“Only about 10% of American students study abroad nationally…so studying abroad can really set you apart,” said Dr. Giselda Beaudin, director of Global Initiatives.
“There is now some pretty good research showing that study abroad is a high-impact practice, meaning it tends to be correlated with students graduating on time,” she added.
According to Sofia Baker (26), a field study participant for freshmen in Costa Rica, “Going to Costa Rica was life changing and really put me on the right track for my career.”
“I learned so much about culture, environment and society,” added Noah Denmark (26), who also participated in the field study.
Rollins’ study abroad opportunities have been designed to meet the needs of its students. When creating semester-long programs, student and faculty feedback is considered through a lengthy review process, which repeats approximately every five years. Short-term programs, such as intersessional and spring break programs, are faculty-led and therefore change each year. Through these processes, students are introduced to both long-established programs and new programs focused on their various fields of study.
According to Beaudin, popular programs of the past have featured destinations such as Spain, England, Japan, Italy, Australia and New Zealand. Although many students choose to study abroad when they are in their second year and upper class, students can participate during any of their four years at Rollins.
“We have a lot of scholarship funding and we work really hard to make sure that if you want to go overseas, finances are not a barrier,” said Beaudin.
Following the temporary halt to study abroad during COVID-19, programs have slowly returned to normal; the the majority of offers have been relaunched.
While the semester programs had only one participant in the 2020-21 academic year, they had 67 participants in the 2021-22 year according to statistics provided by Beaudin. The numbers are also increasing for short-term programs, which have grown from 4 participants in the 2020-21 year to 184 participants in the 2021-22 year. Students interested in learning more about study abroad opportunities are encouraged to meet with a Study Abroad Advisor.
