CHESTER, PA— With study abroad incentives getting so much attention lately, a reality show blog called BlogAbroad.com is looking to remind people of the real incentive to study abroad: an amazing, life-altering experience. Four college students are using interactive Web
CHESTER, PA— With study abroad incentives getting so much attention lately, a reality show blog called BlogAbroad.com is looking to remind people of the real incentive to study abroad: an amazing, life-altering experience.
Four college students are using interactive Web logs to chronicle their study-abroad experiences. They hope to inspire more students to study abroad, and to be able to answer questions and deter any reservations students might have.
“With a federal commission hoping to increase study- abroad participation to a million students a year by 2016, a big step has to be taken to start inspiring more students to travel abroad,” says John Duncan, manager of StudyAbroad.com, the free study-abroad directory behind BlogAbroad.com. “Our blogs can accomplish just that, by showing interesting pictures and explaining that studying abroad is possible and safe and that it can be done.”
Duncan says he struggled to choose bloggers who were going to varied locations and could give differing points of view.
After 300 audition essays and a string of follow-up questions, Duncan and his staff decided on Zach Dionne, a University of Maine student going to Bangor, Wales; Clarissa Arevalo, a University of California-Irvine student going to Barcelona, Spain; Edward Dolphin, a Drexel University student going to St. Petersburg, Russia; and Abyan Lokman, a University of Virginia student from Malaysia going to Lyon, France.
“These four really seemed to epitomize what it means to be a study-abroad student,” says Duncan. “They are going to different places, and they are doing it for different reasons, and I think their experiences will be a great example of how beneficial studying abroad can be.”
The four students are chronicling their experiences three times a week at www.BlogAbroad.com. Anyone can read and respond to the blogs for free, and the bloggers can respond back, creating an interactive dialogue.
This is the sixth straight semester that BlogAbroad.com has done this, and all previous blogs are archived on the site.
Studyabroad.com launched its site in 1995, and has been the Internet’s leading source of information on educational opportunities for students to study in other countries. It is a comprehensive directory of study abroad and intensive language programs organized by subject and destination. StudyAbroad.com also offers specific country and city pages, a handbook serving as a guide to traveling abroad and financial aid information. StudyAbroad.com is a service of Educational Directories Unlimited, a higher education Internet company serving the graduate school and study-abroad communities.
