Anna Meassick | Students stopped by the Study Abroad Fair yesterday to view travel opportunities for class credit.
The University of Rhode Island Study Abroad Fair took place in the Memorial Union ballroom yesterday, offering students an opportunity to learn about their options for studying, volunteering and interning in a foreign country.
At the fair, students had the opportunity to sign up for various study abroad programs, as well as learn more about different programs from students who have previously studied abroad.
Itza Serrano, this year’s graduate research assistant for the International Center, was excited about the 1400 students who attended this year’s fair.
Serrano claims that the most popular place to travel is to Florence, Italy. She explains that it is an ideal destination for art and design majors, due to the many famous Renaissance artists who have work on display there, such as Leonardo Da Vinci.
The most popular booths students were visiting included third-party organizations, such as Cultural Experiences Abroad, a company that mostly offers trips to Europe. Another company, The Education Abroad Network, offers trips to Australia, New Zealand, China and other East-Asian countries.
Other notable booths at the fair included URI’s very own faculty-led study abroad programs. These are convenient for students because they do not require credit transfers between universities. This year, they have added two new programs for the Summer of 2019, including trips to Mexico and New Zealand.
Programs were also advertised that were geared towards doing volunteer work in third-world countries. The most popular of these is called “Carlita’s Smile,” which is aimed at helping the homeless population in the Dominican Republic.
There were also students at the fair advocating for study abroad programs they had already participated in. Clara Crawford, a public relations major, and Lauren Black, a math and data science major, had recently traveled to Dublin, Ireland. Both of them had positive experiences with their programs.
“The placements you got were tailored to what your majors were,” Black said. “Which made it easy to get a good experience out of it.”
Serrano highly recommends that students intern or study abroad sometime during their time at the University, due to it being a life-changing experience.
“A lot of students are born and raised in Rhode Island,” Serrano said. “This broadens their horizons.”