AAA Commercial: Emma spends a semester in Barcelona that she'd call "school"...

I have been wanting to post about a relatively recent (aired primarily January through March) AAA television commercial here in the U.S. that mentions study abroad and I'm now getting around to it as I wonder what IHEC Blog readers think.

In sum, the commercial is the voice of a father (Kirk) recounting his memories of his daughter Emma's life beginning at her wedding and working back through her life to her birth with the premise that AAA Insurance coverage was along with her every step of the way!  Along this journey, Kirk expresses that he didn't know Emma would "spend a semester in Barcelona that she'd call [pause] School".  The commercial is shot in freeze-frame and it shows Emma during her semester in Barcelona at School hiking in the mountains (presumably in the Pyrénées although the beauty of studying abroad is that she could be in the Alps).

My interpretation of both the audio and visual parts of this segment pertaining to Emma's academic time in Barcelona (5 seconds in length) suggest that study abroad (in Barcelona and beyond) by U.S. students is less than the rigorous academic experience we all know that it is...

In my view, this commercial perpetuates the view of study abroad as more of a vacation and less of an academic experience.  What is you view on the commercial and what, if any, impact do you think it has on viewers?




As usual, just looking to stir thoughts and dialogue in the field!

Also, I'm well aware of the impact studying abroad had on my undergraduate GPA (you?)!

Study Abroad or Vacation?

As I searched Twitter for the daily "Study Abroad Tweet of the Day" that I post to IHEC Blog's Facebook page I came across the following tweet:

 "I LEAVE FOR COSTA RICA TODAY. SEE YOU IN 10TH DAYS! #PLANES #NERVOUS #ANXIOUS #STUDYABROAD #VACATION"

Based on the words I assume that this person is going on a "study abroad" program for 10 days and in her tweet she includes both #studyabroad and #vacation.

What are your thoughts on this?  Are 10 days in Costa Rica where one earns academic credit considered study abroad or a vacation?

I've posted about short-term study abroad before:

Study abroad related tweet of the day: "A two week study abroad can barely be considered an international experience in a university program..." [interesting that my first study abroad tweet of the day touched on this exact topic]

The Study Abroad Credential

How short can a study abroad program be?

Photo credits: manalahmadkhan and marinakvillatoro

Changing types of posts here on IHEC Blog

If you have been following IHEC Blog for a while then you may have noticed changes in the way I have been posting.  IHEC Blog and my related activities are secondary to my family, employment and academic lives and things have gotten so busy over the past 6-12 months that I have had to change the way I post.  I still strive to post to IHEC Blog daily (Monday-Friday) but over the past several weeks I've managed only two to three posts per week.  What you will also notice is that I have been embedding much more video, documents and widgets into my posts with links to other resources than writing substantive pieces.  Of my last ten posts (not including this one) I have embedded five videos, one document and one twitter feed widget and the three other posts were short paragraph posts.  While these posts are less time intensive to prepare I do hope that they are informative and add some value to your work.  My current posting patterns will most likely continue for some time as I work to complete my dissertation.  About the dissertation...from July 18-29 I am taking off of work to focus on my dissertation and will probably not post anything (unless I write something this week and schedule to post or it is something I cut and discard from my dissertation that I think IHEC Blog readers may find of interest).  To that end, posts to IHEC Blog's Facebook page and to Twitter will also decrease substantially.


Thanks for coming along for the ride so far and I hope you continue!


Photo credit:  purpleslog (extra credit:  Do you know the name of or location of this clock?)

I will be off line for the next several days due to selling, buying & moving processes associated with home ownership...oh there is also that dissertation thing & regular life stuff. IHEC Blog will be back soon!

It will also be some time before I have internet access at home so this may be a bit of an extended vacation from blogging!  I imagine that I will do some posts to Twitter and IHEC Blog's Facebook page via my handheld!  Hasta Pronto! 

IHEC Blog is Going on Vacation but will be Thinking...

Due to the holiday season here in the U.S. I am taking some time off of work, dissertation and IHEC Blog and related activities to spend time with family up in Milwaukee and then back home in Chicago.  I will return to IHEC Blog on or around Monday, January 3, 2011.


One project I have in the works (and will be thinking about much during break) is better ways to make my electronic resources at Bury Book International Education Library & Archive more organized and searchable for my research efforts, more accessible to collaborators and more environmentally friendly (see yesterday's IHEC Blog post about WWF formatting).  To that end, I have set up an account with Box and am in the early stages of learning how to better connect and share new international education research citations and abstracts and related literature with my colleague @IDPDRIE as well as a few others.  More on this I imagine in a future post...


Photo credit:  Milwaukee City Hall by Just Add Light

IHEC Blog will be on vacation next week

IHEC Blog is going on a much needed vacation.  For the most part, I'll be up in Door County, Wisconsin.  I hope to find some time to relax but with kids who are 8, 5 and almost 2 that can always be a challenge.

I will return Tuesday, September 7th and will be back in action.  I hope to prepare some posts to go out next week but my tweets and IHEC Blog Facebook posts will be rare if at all.  I imagine that I will return to a mountain of e-mail, RSS feeds, tweets, (hopefully) blog comments to sift and sort through so it may take me some time to respond to any messages.

Photo credit:  fam89

IHEC Blog is Going on a Family Vacation

Early tomorrow morning I will be heading out with the family on our family vacation and the day after I return I'm scheduled to defend my dissertation proposal so I'm hoping for no flight delays!  I hope to be able to post to IHEC Blog next Thursday, June 24th but the craziness involved with returning to work and Chicago life after a week of vacation may make this quite difficult.  I do believe, however, that I will resume my normal IHEC Blog, IHEC Blog Facebook page and Twitter activities on Monday, June 28th.

I will be on my iPhone (and will have my laptop along with me as it seems I will need to do some work/prep for my dissertation proposal defense during my vacation) and I anticipate that I may post occasionally to Twitter and Facebook (like I did during the NAFSA conference in Kansas City two weeks ago) on anything related to international education and/or intercultural issues that I may come across on our vacation.

We haven't told our kids where we are going and they simply think that we are heading up to visit family in Milwaukee (fun indeed) but early tomorrow morning we will wake them and spring the news that we are heading  to this castle and the surrounding area...without clicking on the photo credit link below can you guess where we are headed?

Photo credit:  bubble_gum

IHEC Blog is Going on a "Dissertation Proposal Vacation"

Embedded within last Friday's "Who Will Grade Your Work" video of the week post I mentioned that I'm taking a short break from posting to IHEC Blog as I'm working on my dissertation proposal and it is a bit of a time sensitive issue.  My "Dissertation Proposal Vacation" will, of course, be no vacation....

I do have about four or five posts ready to go out over the next few weeks (about once a week) so you will still see some new content on IHEC Blog.  It just won't be every day (Monday to Friday).  My presence on IHEC Blog's Facebook page and on Twitter will also be significantly reduced.

Photo credit: edanley

IHEC Blog is Going on Vacation - Again!

Yes, it's true IHEC Blog is going on vacation and this time I'm actually going on a vacation and not just taking time off of work/projects to be with the kids who are out of school. This will be my first long term (ie. more than 3-4 days) in several years. My wife and I have only planned the first half of our trip and we were up to 1:00am last night/this morning trying to plan the second half as well as pack for the unknown.


Here are two pictures of where we are going for the first half of our trip. Can you guess where we are going? Hint~we are loading up the minivan and heading out from Chicago tonight so it's relatively "close"! Leave a comment if you think you know where we are going. After you leave a comment click on the pictures for the answer!