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Why take a mere semester to study abroad when you can opt for a full four years of foreign fun?

Two years ago, when Nora Melanson was applying to college, she considered studying nursing at a well-known university in Boston. Then she looked at the tuition bill: One year there was equal to all four years at Dalhousie University (dal.ca), in Nova Scotia, Canada. And so the Portland, Maine, resident went north.

“My mother is a nurse in Portland, and she works with three Canadian nurses, who were all hired quickly at Maine Medical Center,” says Melanson. “Canadian nurses are considered very well trained in the States, and Dalhousie nursing students begin their clinical rotation during their first year. Most nursing schools in the States will wait until the end of a student’s second or even third year of college.

Melanson is just one of the many students from around the country who are redefining the term study abroad. Traditionally it was considered a semester or year-long program that gives students a couple of language credits and a taste of life abroad, but more students than ever are deciding to do their entire undergraduate and graduate degree programs overseas. Mark Shay, chief executive officer of Collegeabroad.com, says his organization struggles for exact numbers, but that figures from federal guaranteed student loans show there are approximately 50,000 U.S students doing full degree programs abroad, a marked increase over the last few years.

The British Council says there are 2,600 U.S. undergrads and 7,000 grad students studying in the United Kingdom, and the Canadian Education Centre Network says there were 3,484 U.S. students doing degrees in their universities in 2004; an increase of 60 percent in some regions over the last six years.

American students are in other countries, too, like the Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico, Egypt, Australia, and Ireland, where they are learning new languages, assimilating new cultures, and getting a fresh perspective on the place they call home.

Their reasons for doing their studies abroad for the long term are as varied as you can imagine. Some are looking for a particular degree they can’t obtain at home, some want to experience a different political environment, and others are just saving money.

After being waitlisted for U.S. medical programs three years in a row, Ben Cox decided to pursue his dream by obtaining a medical degree elsewhere. “I am kind of stubborn and refused to take no for an answer,” says Cox, now a first-year med student in the medical program at the Charles University (cuni.cz), in Prague. “I knew it would be worth it to go halfway around the world for this degree.”

What the degree entails is not all that different from what Cox would go through in the States gross anatomy and an annual tuition bill of $11,000 (the program is free for Czech citizens)and his diploma will allow him to be approved for licensing back home as well. But over the next six years, Cox will also have to learn the Czech language. “We have to show a certain level of proficiency by the third year in order to move into our clinical phase,” he says. But the beautiful city, where Cox shares an apartment in a trendy neighborhood with two North American roommates, has made that prospect a welcome challenge. “I definitely like it here,” he says, “and can easily see myself spending the next six years in Prague.”

There are also those who pick more traditional destinations, like England’s Oxford University (ox.ac.uk), where Adam Grogg is on a Marshall fellowship. “I spent all four undergraduate years in the States and loved it,” Grogg says, “but I was intent on getting some distance from America in order to understand it better. I grew up in rural Virginia, but discovered that I only came to understand my home when I went away to Massachusetts for college; I wanted to apply the same model to my entire country.”

Grogg, a comparative social policy student, had the chance to do just that last year. “Being here for the 2004 election was incredibly illuminating, if frustrating at times,” he says. “Getting a glimpse of a British/European perspective on our politics and seeing what foreigners understood and especially seeing what confused them was invaluable.”

That international perspective emerges as a prime motivator of long-term study-abroaders. “All Americans should live outside the country for a year to see how ridiculous they look to the rest of the world,” says Dalhousie student Matthew Sugrue, quoting the novelist John Irving. Sugrue, however, also cites cost as a factor: Annual tuition at Dalhousie is approximately $9,500 U.S. “It costs less for me to be an international student at Dal than as an in-state student at the University of Connecticut,” he says. Sugrue also had baser motives: the lower drinking age (19) and, he says, “probably the biggest factor, sadly, was when I found out that Canadian schools don’t want you to write an essay when applying.

Still, applying to foreign schools is much like applying to American schools: You’ll need high school or university transcripts, letters of recommendation, SAT scores, and, in some cases, a personal essay. Many schools have Web-based applications and virtually all require application fees. Some, like Oxford, even require interviews, which are done in New York City and Vancouver, B.C. Last year Oxford received 270 U.S. applications for undergraduate degree studies. One in five was accepted.

Finding a school to apply to can be a challenge, however: The university systems of China and Argentina may be literally foreign territory for an American guidance counselor. The best way to find a school is to go online, look at university exchange listings, and pester those counselors!

Once you get in, however, you may face issues beyond cramming for a chem test or dealing with a disagreeable roommate.

“We often fly under the radar,”says Ann Beringer, referring to herself and the 200 other U.S. students currently enrolled at Dalhousie. “We are not always visible minorities, we do not face English as a Second Language issues, and we acclimate easily to campus life.” But, she says, a mention of her citizenship can strike horror on the faces of her classmates if she decides to bring it up. “It is especially fun after they have uttered a particularly nasty slur about us,”says Beringer, who says the terrorist attacks of September 11 made her want to leave the country.

In part because of what she’s faced at Dalhousie, Beringer plans to go to graduate school back in the U.S. “Being a student here is often difficult,” she says. “Not being able to work to support myself off campus, not being eligible for student loans here in Canada, but also being denied time and time again for loans in America just because I chose to spend a few years of my life experiencing something else, somewhere else. I am here because I like a challenge, and emotionally, mentally, academically, politically, and financially, this move has never ceased to challenge me.

Coming home, however, can prove just as problematic, and some, like Bryan Fox, decide to put it off for as long as possible. Fox began his overseas studies at Australia’s Melbourne University, where a semester abroad convinced him he could finish his undergraduate philosophy degree there. “I met a girl and simultaneously realised that if you’re doing a course in philosophy, you can’t honestly maintain that it matters where you get your degree,” he says. “I had a ball!

Now Fox is enrolled in a master’s degree program in European Studies at the Jagiellonian University (uj.edu.pl) in Krakow, Poland. “I knew the cost of living in Poland was low and that I could support myself teaching English 10 hours a week while studying. I also knew I could get a master’s in one year for just 6,000 euro.

As graduation approaches, Fox is thinking about doing nonprofit work in the European Uniona goal that has proven difficult because, he says, all EU work seems to be for EU citizens. And while he would like to return home one day to settle down, and maybe get his teaching certification, he also feels like he’s studied abroad for so long that he’s not sure he’d feel at home anywhere.

“Home becomes where you’re laying your head at the moment and nothing more,” says Fox. “Attaining that whole Buddhist/Hindhu state of blissful detachment comes with a cost: You don’t much feel like you care one way or the other where you are.

At the same time, says Fox, “The experiences I’ve had studying abroad have given me qualities that could not have come to me if I’d stayed in America. I seem to remember that life experience’ was high on my guidance counselor’s list of things that make candidates for colleges more appealing, and I hope that holds true for life after uni.

Photo by Melani Furlong

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