Study Abroad and International Education in the Twitterverse

In mid-February I decided to start a profile on Twitter. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I'm not interested in what anyone ate for breakfast or that they just bought the latest Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD or that they are getting ready for bed so I wasn’t sure what Twitter could do for me. I must say that I’m finding Twitter to be a useful (and amusing) tool.

I’ll first comment on Twitter as a useful tool…

I currently follow 150 people on Twitter and 125 are following me and this number is growing slow and steady. I’m attracted to Twitter posts about international and higher education issues with links to articles, blogs, reports/documents. I find most of the content posted to Twitter by the people I follow to be intellectually engaging and often times information I probably would not have come across on my own.

It’s challenging for me to find time to research, write and post to IHEC Blog on a daily basis as I am a husband and father of three great and active little children, I work full-time in The College at The University of Chicago and I am at the dissertation proposal stage so my blogging and consulting activities take a back seat. I use Twitter as a micro blog or an extension of this blog when I don’t have time to put together a longer blog post but want to push content that I think/hope people will find interesting. If you don’t want to follow anyone you can also search Twitter for specific terms/phrases and you can see all the recent posts related to those search terms.

A handful of examples of useful/interesting Twitter posts follow:

@IDPDRIE: New records have been added to the IDP Database of Research on International Education. See the April link at http://tinyurl.com/bo2l6s

@glancypants: Supporting international education. Visit www.iielatinamerica.org to see what IIE Latin America is up to.

@chronicle: Aided by Exchange Rate, New Zealand Makes Gains in International Education http://tinyurl.com/d2tvsm

@DavidComp: Study Abroad Alumni International is a new study abroad organization that sounds interesting http://www.studyabroadalumniinternational.org/

@Study_Vancouver: Search International Education-Vancouver Community College on Facebook and learn about studying in Vancouver: http://www.facebook.com

@nathanreid: reasons why us Americans fail... a girl asked a Swedish exchange student "so what do you guys do on 4th of July?"

@ anavidtraveler: University of Washington State Relations » Study abroad insurance ... http://tinyurl.com/cmrlhq

@PublicDiplomacy [Today in PD] People-to-People-Based Foreign Policy http://tinyurl.com/cg3tt4

@CitizenDiplomat: Support the Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy! Improve the U.S. image abroad...http://tinyurl.com/cewjoo

@NAFSA: Explore 2009 Annual Conference Poster Topics #nafsa09. More at http://www.nafsa.org/nnews

Now on to Twitter for my amusement…To be honest, it’s really the students who are interested in or who currently are studying abroad that provide me with a chuckle from time to time. A handful of examples of amusing Twitter posts follow:

@ keva_miller: jus got her first assignment for her study abroad program...i almost forgot Europe aint gone be no vacay

@ NealCrosby: I've been accepted to go on the Ireland study abroad trip this summer! YES!!! I can go to the pub in Gallway!

@purple_kangaroo What the fuck do you wear to interview for a study abroad program?

@ayharkey: I wish i had the money to study abroad in Egypt. Or the Philippines or Korea for that matter. ANYONE WANT TO DONATE?

@christinartobia: I don't understand why the study abroad office insists on making my life so much more difficult...

@centuryplant: @fishingwithyou We're eating for free at study abroad orientation!

@DesireeinDR: school is getting in the way of study abroad.

@MBenti: On study abroad and taking the time to travel around Europe: "My GPA will understand."

For those of you on Twitter ~ what are your thoughts?




You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DavidComp.