IHEC Blog nominated for the Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010

Yesterday I received news that IHEC Blog was nominated for the Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010 competition held by Lexiophiles and bab.la. Voting is open through February 14th so if you have a few free minutes between now and the end of voting period please take a few (maybe several) to look at the various nominated blogs and cast your vote here!

Additionally, you may find my other website/blog International Education Blogs & News (IEB&N) to be of interest. You can access IEB&N here.

International Education Blogs & News Looking for Blog Submissions

International Education Blogs & News (IEB&N) is seeking blog URL submissions from international education professionals and organizations who are blogging about issues related international and intercultural education to be added to the site.

IEB&N is also seeking blog URL submissions from students, faculty and other academics (Fulbright grantees for example) who are blogging from abroad about their experiences. IEB&N is seeking blog URLs from anyone in the world who is studying and/or researching in a foreign country. Interesting blogs, for example, could be from German academics in Japan, Japanese academics in the U.S. or U.S. academics in Germany.

Please visit IEB&N here to see which blogs are already feeding great content to the site!

Please e-mail blog URLs to David Comp, International Higher Education Consulting, at international.ed.consulting@gmail.com

Please note that David Comp reserves the full right not to include any blog submitted for consideration to IEB&N as well as the full right to remove any blog currently feeding content to IEB&N at any time.

Why Premeds Should Study Abroad

I was searching through my research notes today during lunch and came across a quote that I copied and pasted from a SECUSS-L post (study abroad listsev) from the mid-1990’s that I’ve been referring to in my advising meetings with premed students on the value of studying/researching/working abroad. This is the type of quote that gets students to listen.

"Spending a year of study abroad is a life enriching, life changing experience. Those of us involved in medical school admissions can well appreciate the value of such experience. When we review an application to medical school, of course, we are interested in grades and MCAT scores. But we're also interested in clinical and researchexperience, as well as other kinds of experiences that impact on the applicant's maturity, leadership skills and sensitivities to people of differing backgrounds and cultures. Spending a year living and studying in another country and culture is truly a transforming and enriching experience. And since so few American students study abroad, only 2%, it would be a unique experience as well. Having a year of study abroad in one's background would be a very positive component of an application to medical school." Dr. Ralph Purdy, ChairMedical School Admissions CommitteeUniversity of California, IrvineOctober 24, 1996

To be sure, premed students shouldn’t study abroad just so they are more competitive in the medical school application process. It’s just a nice outcome of a transformative educational experience.

IHEC Blog Highlights - Wandering Educators!

Over the past two and a half years I’ve become more active in/on most of the social media tools available (Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Ning, Google Reader) and in particular those that pertain to international education and public diplomacy. I’ve been blogging since February 2007 and pushing related content on Twitter since February 2009. Additionally, I’ve joined numerous social networks/communities relating to international education over the past couple of years. Some are great and some are not so great…

One site that I think is really great is WanderingEducators.com which you can access here. I really like the content that WanderingEducators.com publishes. Rather than paraphrase what WanderingEducators.com is about I thought I would copy and paste the following snippet from their website:

“An international community of traveling educators, WanderingEducators.com is a resource for discovering extraordinary travel destinations, fascinating people, and global artists and photographers, among our many published articles. As well, WanderingEducators.com has over 35 editors, representing nations around the world and a plethora of intercultural and travel-related areas...”

You can learn more what WanderingEducators.com is all about here. IHEC Blog readers on Twitter will want to follow Wandering Educators at http://twitter.com/WanderingEds.

The Bridge Year Program at Princeton University

Attention all high school students: seriously consider Princeton University in your choice of college applications! I recently learned about an exciting and innovative international education opportunity for admitted freshman students at Princeton University that I thought I would alert IHEC Blog readers to. I won’t summarize all of the Bridge Year Program details in this post as I encourage you to visit the program website to learn more. However, I have copied and pasted a snippet from the Bridge Year Program website to give you a taste of what Princeton University is doing:

“Designed especially for incoming freshmen, Princeton’s new Bridge Year Program allows you to defer your enrollment for a year while you serve the public good in another country. You’ll do challenging, meaningful work in a school, social service agency, clinic, or another community service organization. Your nine months of service will give you both an international perspective and a deep appreciation for the importance of serving society and the world. When you return, you’ll enter your first year at Princeton University with a wealth of experience and maturity.”

Best of all…the Bridge Year Program is tuition free! You can learn more about this program here. You can learn more about how Princeton is internationalizing campus here.

Yale President Richard Levin Talks International Education on Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose had a conversation with Richard Levin, President of Yale University, which was aired on July 15th that I found to be very engaging and one I think most IHEC Blog readers would be interested in watching or listening to. Rose and Levin discuss many topics throughout their conversation and what caught my attention was Levin's views on developing students' global perspectives and cross cultural understanding through Yale's presence abroad and international students on campus (begins around the 18:50 minute mark).

UC San Diego Extension Researches Global Volunteer Service

My recent research efforts lead me to an interesting summary of a survey conducted by the University of California San Diego Extension on global volunteer service. I have not read the full report (as I can’t find it available in PDF format online) so I am simply copying and pasting below the most interesting findings from the UC San Diego Extension press releases that I found.

“Two-thirds of high school students and about half of the college students surveyed say they have participated in discussions in the past year related to traveling to other regions to provide volunteer service, whereas less than half of the adult population, and only one-quarter of retirees, say they have done so.”

“About 40 percent of Americans say they're willing to spend several weeks on vacations that involve volunteer service, with another 13 percent desiring to spend an entire year.”

“Overall, the survey found that over two-thirds (69 percent) of Americans have participated in donating money or time to a global cause, up from the 48 percent in a spring 2008 poll conducted by UC San Diego Extension.”

“While 26 percent of Generation Y want to hop on a plane and help out in Africa or Europe, about 36 percent of retirees and baby boomers would choose staying in North America for their volunteer vacations.”

The overall top ten international desired destinations for volunteering are:

1. Africa (17%)

2. East Asia (12%)

3. South America (9%)

4.(tie) Mexico (8%)

4.(tie) Western Europe (8%)

6. Eastern Europe (7%)

7. Central America (6%)

8. Pacific islands (5%)

9. Australia (4%)

10. Middle East (3%)

You can access the UC San Diego Extension press releases and other articles relating to this research here.

IHEC Blog Voted #10 in Top 100 International Exchange & Experience Blogs 2009 Competition

I just received word from Erin Gallagher over at the bab.la and Lexiophiles team that my International Higher Education Consulting Blog was voted number 10 in their Top 100 International Exchange & Experience Blogs competition for 2009! This is exciting news and I want to thank everyone who took a moment out of your busy lives to vote for my blog in this competition. You can view the list of all of the nominated blogs and how they ranked in the voting here and if you want to read an article that explains more about the competition you can do so here.

A word of congratulations is due to all the nominated blogs and especially the top three blogs as the team from bab.la and Lexiophiles have made donations to UNICEF on their behalf and the top three bloggers will also receive updates from the community where their donation was directed!

I would like to encourage all IHEC Blog readers to join me in applauding the top three bloggers by also making a donation to UNICEF. You can support UNICEF in all of their great work here!

IHEC Blog nominated for Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs competition for 2009

While I was in Los Angeles at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference I received word that my International Higher Education Consulting Blog was nominated for the 2009 Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs competition which is hosted by Lexiophiles [http://www.lexiophiles.com/] and bab.la [http://bab.la/]. I encourage IHEC Blog readers to check out the top 100 blogs listed as there are some really good ones and to take a moment to vote in the competition (voting closes this coming Saturday, June 6th)



Thank you in advance for your consideration! David Comp

Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE)

My colleague Bernhard Streitwieser, Senior Research Associate of the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University is leading a joint research project between Northwestern’s Searle Center for Teaching Excellence and the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies entitled Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE). This research project may be off the radar of many practitioners (and researchers) in the field of international education (ie. my NAFSA and Forum on Education Abroad colleagues) so I thought I would post to IHEC Blog about it. I'm excited about this project for many reasons and am pleased to see this research coming out of these two centers at Northwestern University. You can learn more about the Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE) research project here.

I recently had lunch with Bernhard and Shyanmei Wang, Program Associate at the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence and who is also working on the Student Conceptions of International Experience (SCIE) research project, to discuss the state of research in the field of study abroad and possible avenues for collaboration so stay tuned…