Photo credit: https://paris.undergrad.columbia.edu/content/program-activities-0
After participating in the French Immersion Program last year at Reid Hall in Paris, I was amazed to think that I might have easily passed up on the opportunity to go abroad. To take a semester to get away from Morningside Heights and explore someplace new—while at the same time fulfilling requirements for the Core and my concentration—was, looking back, one of the best decisions I’ve made in my time at Columbia. Upon returning to the States, I felt that I had come back to the university, the city, and college in general with fresh eyes and a renewed sense of purpose. Not long after, I saw that the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement takes on interns, and decided that my Work Study hours would be well-spent helping others go abroad as well.
Despite its location in Manhattan, few, I think, will disagree that Columbia can often feel like a bubble. However, many students I talk to doubt that they will be able to take off for a full semester, or even a summer. It can be tricky (especially for SEAS students) to ensure that, even with a semester or two abroad, they’ll be able to complete all of their Core and major requirements; and students often worry, like I did, that there might be grave consequences for missing out on events, opportunities and resources—such as student groups, Bacchanal, internships, or even financial aid—that are to varying degrees (but rarely entirely) exclusive to Columbia’s Manhattan campuses. This year, having had the opportunity to work with study abroad advisors and others in the office, and having reflected more on my own time abroad, I feel that given the merits of study abroad and many programs that students here have access to, it’s worthwhile to assuage some of those fears. In this particular post, I delve into how Core requirements, in particular, can be completed abroad.
Columbia offers both Columbia-led programs and Columbia-approved programs. At Columbia-led programs, such as the French Immersion Program at Reid Hall, it will be more obvious which courses have the potential to satisfy Core requirements: Core classes will be listed as such, credits will be transferred automatically, and language classes will fulfill the Core language requirement without much ado. (Contrary to the belief that you need to know a foreign language in order to study abroad, many of Columbia’s most popular study abroad programs, such as those in France and Germany, have English-language options.) At Columbia-approved programs, which are typically led by some other organization or university, a petition is needed to get credit toward the Global Core requirement, and a language placement exam is used to determine your progress toward the foreign language requirement once you’re back in New York. (You might find that after some time immersed in the foreign language that you’ve studied in class, you’ve progressed even faster than you would have back home.)
While the most obvious Core requirements to knock out while abroad are the language requirement and Global Core classes, it is possible to work through most Core requirements abroad, save courses like Lit Hum and Contemporary Civilizations. Two Summer Core in Paris programs—one in Berlin and one in Paris—allow students to take Art Humanities and Music Humanities at the same time during the summer. Other programs or foreign universities often offer study abroad students the opportunity to take classes that might, with your Academic Advisor’s help, count toward the Core’s science or physical education requirements. (Note: While financial aid automatically applies to programs that take place in the spring and fall, students can offset the cost of summer programs with Global Learning Scholarships.)
As opposed to the usual humdrum class in Hamilton or Dodge, why not learn Japanese in Kyoto, or go out clubbing in Berlin in between sessions of Music Hum? As it turns out, there are plenty of reasons not to go—studying abroad is inherently risky. Most of the time, it does take a bit of work to ensure that every advisor is met with, that every petition is signed, that you have the scholarships you need. But, though going abroad may not be as simple as pouncing on your preferred classes the instant that your course selection appointment begins, it is—in my view, at least—worth the rigamarole.
(If you’d like to get in touch with me or any other student workers at UGE about completing the Core abroad, our contact information is available at this link!)