Improving Ways to Get Away

The recent changes to Harvard’s study abroad program have been encouraging. Across campus, students are starting to recognize that study abroad is becoming easier, and departments say interest has already increased. When departmental changes, Harvard-sponsored initiatives and a list of preapproved programs are implemented, they will go a long way towards eliminate daunting obstacles limiting participation in study abroad.

The history department has made a great deal of progress in relaxing its requirements to accommodate students and study abroad. History has done away with junior spring tutorial and course-intensive subject tracks, giving concentrators more flexibility to pursue study outside Cambridge. Intensive tutorials can be beneficial for harnessing a deep understanding of subject areas, but they should not preclude the opportunity for students to experience another country and culture firsthand and to learn about their subject from a different perspective in a new environment. Other concentrations should look to the history department’s example when reevaluating their requirements.

The University is also creating new Harvard-affiliated programs; the first one will be in Chile this spring. In this way, Harvard should not hesitate to create its own curricula in countries where existing programs are lacking. The newly-created Office of International Programs should broaden the range of these Harvard-sponsored initiatives, but it must also formalize credit for existing programs overseas.

While Harvard is certainly a university of the highest quality, experiences at other schools can be even more valuable to students, and so they deserve Harvard Core or concentration credit. Harvard should expeditiously finalize its two-track system to provide students with programs that are preapproved for credit, which would eliminate students’ uncertainty about receiving College credit. When students can receive credit for a wide range of educational opportunities, those without advance standing will be more likely to study abroad. And as the number of students studying abroad increases, Harvard should make undergraduates well aware that financial aid is available for students studying abroad who receive aid to attend the College.

Moves like these will help Harvard provide the most unique and valuable educational experience for its students. Only 8 percent of Harvard students graduate having studied abroad, while other schools average between 20 and 40 percent, according to Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs John H. Coatsworth, chair of the Committee on Study Out of Residence. At a time when peoples and cultures world are becoming more interconnected, isolation is a dangerous form of ignorance. Harvard must persevere with this effort to eliminate the obstacles that discourage students from venturing outside Cambridge’s familiar confines.