Steinhardt’s Study Abroad Programs Bring Global Opportunities to Graduate Students

By Timothy Farrell

      NYU remains the top American university in sending students to study abroad, according to a recent report by the Institute of International Education (IIE). While more and more undergraduates study abroad, a growing number of graduate students are also taking advantage of study abroad options at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
      “The phenomenon of graduate study abroad has skyrocketed over the past few years,” said Erich Dietrich, director of Steinhardt’s Office of Academic Initiatives and Global Programs. “It gives a lot of graduate students who never studied abroad in college the chance to get up to speed, globally.”
      The IIE report notes that over the last decade there has been an unprecedented growth in the number of American students who receive academic credit for their overseas experience, increasing more than 150 percent. For students who were not able to study abroad as an undergraduate, Steinhardt’s programs offer a chance to earn credit while experiencing a new culture.
      A four-week community health course, “A Society in Transition,” in Cape Town, South Africa, provided Jaughna Nielsen-Bobbit, a master’s candidate in Steinhardt’s Program in Community Public Health, the opportunity to put her classroom learning to work in the field. The course, which examines HIV and TB in post-apartheid South Africa, brings students together for placements with NGOs and site visits at the epicenter of the AIDS crisis. Students there get a first-hand look at the challenges of providing health care in a low-resource setting.
      “The program fit directly in my course of study, which involves HIV and reproductive health,” said Nielsen-Bobbit. “It was great to see how South Africa’s health care system has mobilized against the disease.”
      Steinhardt currently offers 17 summer study abroad programs for graduate students and 10 programs during January intersession. Graduate students can study studio art in Venice, educational theater in Brazil, and occupational therapy in Accra, Ghana, among others. The intersession programs, which typically last 10 days, are especially appealing to those graduate students who hold full-time jobs and might not otherwise have the chance to study abroad.
      Integrating fieldwork into the curriculum is a priority, said Dietrich. “The more students are involved in their host communities, the better,” he said. “We try to create opportunities where students are involved in fieldwork and community engagement.”
      For Wendell Cheng, a master’s student in international education, the opportunity for cross-cultural exchange was a big motivation to enroll in “Global Food Cultures,” which was taught in Hong Kong this past January.
      “The program really changed the view I had of my discipline,” Cheng said. “I never thought of looking at food as a medium of culture, but it directly applied to my field of study, which is looking at how children and outsiders pick up culture.”