Скачать или смотреть Study Abroad -- UMass Amherst Transfer Spotlight

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone and welcome to "Transfer Spotlight." It's video series highlighting the people, programs and everything else that makes UMass great with a specific focus on need to know information for transfer students. Today we will be discussing the International Programs Office, AJ LeBlanc, Aj thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for inviting us.

The first question I kind of wanted to go over was what kinds of study abroad programs are available to students at UMass?

Sure, so we offer in a normal year around 300 programs. They run from short term faculty taught that might be one or two weeks for a full semester. We have summer and winter session programs as well as semester and academic year. And then we offer a variety of experiences as well. So some students want UMass abroad and we can do that. So traditional classroom settings with other UMass students, other American students, and then some students might want to be the only American on that campus. They wanna be the international student with host country students, and we can do that as well. And then we have programs that are mixed. So you'd be taking classes with other American students and then you'd be taking classes with the host country students and other international students. So it's really up to every individual student to decide what they want that experience to look like.

That sounds fantastic . The big question I'm gonna get after that you just we're talking about a study abroad for transfer students is are transfer students eligible to do study abroad.

Yes.

Yeah. And if that's the case, what's the timeline for transfer students to participate.

So because transfer students have a GPA from their previous schools they can start applying their very first semester and they can go abroad as early as their second semester at UMass, depending on how many credits a transfer student comes in with, and then what their plan is for how long they want to take to get to graduation that helps decide what their options will be. So the students coming in as a junior they might not have as many options because they're going to have specific academics that they have to get done. Whereas sophomores might have a few more options. We do have some students who will push back their graduation date because they want to go abroad but they can definitely go. So all students need to start with their academic advisors to map their semesters. So what classes do they need to take to get to graduation? And what's their graduation plan? How many semesters would they like to take to get to graduation. Once they know that, they can talk about what classes that they have to take at UMass there's certain classes like Junior writing and the integrative experience that you have to take here but different majors in colleges might have requirements. What's great about going abroad is the classes count as residency credits which I know some transfer students are worried that they're not going to have enough, but because they're approved UMass programs, they can attempt. And then if they can't quite figure out how to make it work for a semester that's when we'll look at summer and winter programs.

In addition to whether or not they can do it and sort of the timeline, something I've been asking in all of these different spotlights is are there any things that transfer students tend not to be aware of about, in this case study abroad and that you would want them to be prepared for?

Yeah. So the biggest one is financial aid. And this is a, I think a common myth for all students is that, you can use your financial aid to go abroad. So because there are approved UMass students they're still active, inspire while they're abroad. So their financial aid, loans, scholarships, grants anything that they get. There's a few exceptions for like tuition credits like the John and Abigail Adams or work study but everything else goes with you. So students can use that financial aid to help pay. And then there's also plenty of scholarships that students can apply for. So going abroad can be very affordable if students are looking at large cities like London or Sydney or anywhere that the exchange rate isn't in our favor that's probably going to cost more than a semester at UMass. But then we also have programs that are very very budget friendly. We had a student last semester that her program was completely paid for with her financial aid, including her food, her housing. And she ended up being able to pay for her flight. So she saved money going abroad and even had some money left over for personal travel that she wanted to do.

That sounds amazing So finally, I think, is there anything else topics wise that you'd like to cover before we end?