Dozens of students study abroad each year

More Pitt-Bradford students than ever are traveling abroad.

Over the past four years, an average of 21 students have traveled abroad each year, up from five in 2011, the first year that Kristin Asinger became director of study abroad.

During those four years, students have traveled to 26 countries on five continents.

Favorite destinations for Pitt-Bradford students are England, Japan, Costa Rica, Germany and Austria. Three of those countries are so popular because of travel abroad programs run by Pitt-Bradford.

For 23 years, Pitt-Bradford has had a sister school relationship with the Yokohama College of Commerce in Japan. Beginning with a one-way faculty exchange, the sister relationship now involves the exchange of faculty and students both ways.

This summer, five students traveled with Asinger to Yokohama, where they were hosted by local host families and able to dig their own bamboo shoots for lunch, visit the fish market in Tokyo, and, of course plenty of temples and shrines.

Several students have also gone on to take summer classes at YCC, where some courses are taught in English.

A similar relationship with Heilbronn University in Germany began in 2010. Beginning that year, several students from Heilbronn have attended Pitt-Bradford for a semester or a year.

In 2012, students from Pitt-Bradford traveled to Heilbronn for the first time. This summer, seven business students traveled with Asinger and took six credits in European business and international marketing.

Students took excursions on their days off from classes.

A third cohort of Pitt-Bradford students traveled with Orin James, instructor of biology, on a Pitt in Austria program on Comparative Healthcare in Graz. James has lived in both Germany and Austria and proposed the program for students in health and rehabilitation sciences, nursing, political science and pre-medicine.

Other students spent their summer abroad in independent programs in London; Buenos Aires, Argentina; San Jose, Costa Rica; and New Delhi and Mumbai, India.

Asinger said that the cost of studying abroad for a summer or a semester can be not much more than the cost of similar time on campus.

Pitt-Bradford students are eligible to attend exchange programs at the same rate as their regular tuition.

Asinger said that with a head start, she can help students research both programs and scholarships to help cover remaining transportation costs. Several young women from Pitt-Bradford each year are chosen for a scholarship program for Women in Global Leadership, which covers most of the cost of summer study abroad.

For the fall of 2015, Charles Roebuck, a senior business management student from Pittsburgh, received a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship to study in Salamanca, Spain.

Gilman scholarships, which are funded by the U.S. Department of State, were awarded to 860 undergraduate students for this fall. The scholars receive up to $5,000 to apply toward to study abroad or internship program costs.

“I always wanted to go overseas,” said Roebuck, who is a non-traditional age student. “I came back to school, and I wanted to do as much as I could.”

Roebuck will take classes taught in English, which Asinger said is possible in most study-abroad programs.

“The experience will be worth as much as the education,” Roebuck said.

Gilman scholarships aim to diversify the kinds of students who study abroad, and Asinger said that she is seeing more diverse students interested in studying abroad, also.

Not only are more ethnically and culturally diverse students studying abroad, but more academically diverse students are studying abroad, too.

Once the purview of art and language majors, study abroad programs are now available for students majoring in biology, accounting, criminal justice and even engineering.

Edith Lloyd-Etuwewe, a biology and pre-medicine major from West Mifflin, for example, studied public health in India this summer. After making the trek with Asinger to Yokohama this summer, Nnedimma Ugochukwu, a computer information systems and technology student from Washington, D.C., is headed to China this fall for a full year to study programming at Fudan University.

Asinger emphasized that students can tailor their experience to whatever they're comfortable with - anything from a spring break trip to Dublin where students study criminal justice systems to a year in Peru living with a host family.

The key, she said, is to start early - at least six months in advance. But she's sure there's a perfect program for any Pitt-Bradford student who wants to take advantage of studying abroad.