Study Abroad, What good is it?

We’re sitting in the main plaza in San Ignatzio (free Wi-Fi) and sifting through our emails.  In one of my news-feeds about higher education I came across a story about study abroad in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  It’s a worthwhile read, but I’ll try to sum it up as best I can.  It appears that many folks, including at times the students themselves, have a difficult time articulating (and hence accepting) the value of a study abroad experience.   Some universities are responding with programs (unspoken motto of higher ed: there’s no problem that a program can’t fix) to attempt to help students put their experience in perspective.   One of the points the article makes is that perspective employers don’t seem to care about the experience and the students are blamed for not being able to put it in words.

The article leaves open the more interesting question:  How is it that perspective employers could not be impressed with a study abroad stint?

Perhaps there are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that the gains of such an experience aren’t easily reflected in GPA’s or awards and accolades.

In another story I read recently, folks at the University of Georgia system have published a comprehensive study of “Academic Outcomes” from study abroad programs.  The study looked at over 19,000 students who had completed a study abroad stint and compared them to a carefully selected control group of 17,000 some students of similar background and preparation who stayed at closer to home.   I haven’t read the study itself, only the article that summarizes the study, so any observations here are to be taken with a grain of salt, but the study abroad students achieved a better graduation rate (both 4 and 6 years) but their GPA’s weren’t notably better.  Two really significant results stand out in my mind however.  First, students with lower SAT scores generally saw bigger improvements in their academic performance after going abroad.  This seems to poke at the conventional wisdom that “at-risk” students should not be encouraged to study abroad. Second (and this goes right to the heart of the Chronicle story I mentioned first) there was little evidence that “disciplinary learning outcomes” (God help me, I’m actually beginning to understand this education jargon) improved for the study abroad participants.

I don’t find this last result very surprising, nor do I find it disconcerting.  After 23 years of teaching engineering, I’ve come to the conclusion that what distinguishes a really successful graduate from a mediocre one isn’t GPA or how fast they made it through the program.  Many faculty member has been befuddled when their new graduate student, who had excellent GRE’s and a 4.0 undergraduate GPA foundered in the less structured environment of graduate school. I’ve heard similar stories from folks in industry.   GPA is but a slice through a much more complicated cloud of performance measures.  My wife likes to talk about a “spark” that you can notice with people.  We also note that some students are “awake” while others aren’t completely engaged.  While these attributed (sparky and awake) don’t lend themselves to peer-reviewed studies, I think most faculty members (who are sparky and awake themselves) will agree with me.  There’s something about successful students that just jumps out at you.

Here’s what I think is going on.  If for no other reason than the time in life when most students are working toward their degree, the process of maturing is reaching it’s conclusion, in spite of all we do in higher education. Some longitudinal studies using the Perry Scale for intellectual maturity suggests similar conclusions.

When a student opts to study abroad, they are making a choice to leave their comfort zone and do something that many people would choose to avoid.  To go to an environment where few people speak your native tongue and where cultural norms (from dress to how to order food in a restaurant) are different from the ones you grew up with, is to force some level of growth on even the most growth-resistant student.  In short, they’re choosing to do something difficult, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and they generally have no choice but to see it through to a logical conclusion.

To be sure, some students approach study abroad as a lark, a chance to have easy access to alcohol and to party their way through the semester, but I would argue that even these students will gain something in the process, if only a lasting regret for opportunities lost.

So this brings me back to my question: Why is it the perspective employers don’t seem to value the study abroad experience?  In this age of “performance metrics” and “outcomes assessment” where it seems nothing is of value unless you put a number to it (complete disclosure: I am a recovering department head and an accreditation evaluator…) The study abroad experience is in danger of being marginalized.

That said, employers who only using quantitative data to sort through their candidates and use numerical weighted averages in their hiring decisions, get what they deserve:  employees who know how to work the system, but may not have the creativity, drive and leadership that will make a real difference.

I, for one, will always root for the student with a 3.3 GPA but a rich life history, including some times overseas,  over the over-achieving graduate with a highly-polished resume.

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