Sophs Go Abroad In Greater Numbers

Nathan C. M. Leiby ’10 is having an unorthodox sophomore spring.

While his classmates brave a frigid Cambridge February and reading-intensive sophomore tutorials, Leiby has relocated to Botswana, working at a lab and taking impromptu camping trips.

As Harvard’s study abroad programs continue to grow in popularity, Leiby and other sophomores are pushing the boundaries of what is traditionally an experience for students in their third year of college.

“I though maybe I could go junior year, but how often do you get the opportunity to go to Botswana?” Leiby said.

Like other sophomores who study in a foreign country, Leiby says he is trying to find direction in his academic career. He has declared a concentration in molecular and cellular biology, but Leiby says he isn’t sure it’s for him.

Inspired by Paul Farmer—a Harvard Medical School professor and co-founder of Partners in Health, a non-profit that brings medical care to third-world countries—Leiby said he is taking classes and researching with the Botswana-Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative for HIV Research and Education.

CROSSING BORDERS

Harvard has seen a rapid increase in the number of students going abroad since 2002, when the College revamped its program to encourage students to study in foreign countries. According to the Office of International Programs (OIP) Web site, the number of students spending a term in another country has more than doubled over six years, from 106 in 2001-2002 to 245 last academic year.

The demographics of study abroad are also changing.

This year, ten percent of students studying abroad are sophomores or seniors, according to an e-mailed statement from Andrea P. Savage, a staff assistant in the OIP. Last academic year, this figure was only five percent.

Oscar R. Romano ’09 was one of them.

“I wanted to...think about how to change what I was doing, how to make my time here even better,” Romano says.

To do so, he says, he went to Rio de Janeiro as a sophomore last spring, where he directly enrolled in a Brazilian university,took classes in sociology and cultural anthropology, and realized that he didn’t want to go into investment banking.

According to Catherine H. Winnie, director of the OIP, studying abroad is a very individualized experience, and the Office does not recommend one particular year over another.

Students who study abroad in non-traditional years report little red tape. Romano says that the University even granted him more funding when he showed that his costs had increased.

IVY DEPLOYMENT

Across the Ivy League, the number of non-juniors studying abroad is comparable to the number leaving the country from Harvard.

At Cornell, 51 of the 488 students spending part of this academic year abroad aren’t juniors, according to associate director of Cornell Abroad Kristen A. Grace. Likewise, ten of the 150 Princetonians who went abroad last academic year were sophomores, according to an e-mailed statement from Nancy Kanach, associate dean of the College at Princeton.

But Romano says the number of peers spending sophomore year off campus didn’t affect his own decision.

“Going abroad isn’t about when you should or what’s the norm—it’s about when you feel like it,” Romano says.

—Staff writer Sarah J. Howland can be reached at showland@fas.harvard.edu.