Study abroad on the rise despite tuition increase

The end of the spring semester at WSU marks the end of school and the beginning of summer. But for some students, opting to go to work to earn money for the next semester of increased tuition is not the first priority. With over 1,200 study abroad programs offered by the University, many students are looking to travel outside the US for their education.

Education Abroad Director Candace Chenoweth has seen a steady increase in numbers of students studying abroad since tuition increases.

“I think the students recognize that in this day in age it’s good to get a wider perspective of the world,” Chenoweth said.

In last decade, numbers of students studying abroad have gone up 157.4 percent at WSU, peaking in 2006 at 619 students studying outside the US.

Open Door 2009, a study abroad fact sheet from the Institution of International Education Network website showed figures resembling the climb at WSU. According to the latest report, Americans studying abroad rose 8.5 percent during the 2007-2008 academic year.

But how are those numbers increasing while tuition continues to climb? Chenowith said students are becoming interested in seeing themselves as global citizens more than ever, now, and the study abroad office is working harder than ever to help those students achieve that goal.

Chenowith listed off ways students can become globally oriented: Attending lectures covering international topics, interacting with international students and taking foreign language courses.
“So there’s a lot of ways students can do that—taking a foreign language, getting a global studies minor –whatever it is, but there really isn’t any replacement for being there,” she added.

She also attributed the steady increase in study abroad numbers to the narrowing gap between study abroad program costs and WSU tuition costs brought on by the 14 percent tuition increase set for the university in 2009.

An average of 575 students traveling outside of the US each year since the tuition increase, with numbers peaking in the 2006-2007 academic year.

She said many students determined to attend WSU are now seeing the $2,000 or $3,000 more that it may cost to study abroad over the rising tuition as being more feasible.

Chenowith said perspectives vary between potential study abroad students who each may have different socio-economic standing.

“We have students applying for every scholarship they can find, who are working extra jobs, who lived at home so they could save more money if they lived in Pullman, to take that money and use it for study abroad,” she said.

“We have other students for whom cost is not really an issue,” Chenowith said. “What we do find is that interest is stronger than ever,” she said.
Jimmy Drago, a freshman international business major at WSU, is a student looking to study in Spain during the 2011 summer.

Drago said he had not thought about cost but was determined to go.

“My parents are big supporters of it, so I think they really want me to do it,” Drago said. “They’ll probably support me financially,” he added.

Rylie Sedustine, a senior hospitality business management major, went on a five-week summer study abroad trip to Florence, Italy between her junior and senior years.

Sedustine said her interest in building educational experience abroad outweighed any hesitance from thinking about financing it.

“I funded my trip through study abroad scholarships and also using my rollover grants and scholarships that WSU gave me for previous semesters,” she said. “I also did a few fundraising events.”

“I didn’t mind spending a lot of money on study abroad because I knew it was an investment in myself and my future,” Sedustine added.

Chenowith said budgeting is an issue many students studying abroad face, but can be lessened by learning from students in the study abroad ambassador program who speak to students about their experiences on trips.

“You only have a certain amount of money in your bank account,” Chenowith said hypothetically. “How are you gonna make it? How are you gonna budget? I think that nowadays there is so much information available,” she said.

“There are two expensive things when you’re studying abroad: Drinking and traveling,” Chenowith said. “So if students cut down on the number of alcoholic beverages they consume, they’ll save money. And if they understand that they can travel locally rather than having to jet off to another place they’ll also be saving,” she added.

Chenowith expects numbers of students to continue increasing, as the WSU study abroad office is working to promote education outside the US through social media networks, like Facebook.com, and speaking to students at Alive! freshman orientation and Future Cougar days.

“Students, of course, are excited to have an adventure,” Chenowith said. “They tell us they want to meet people from around the world. They want to have fun, which are also valid,” she added.

“I think when they come back, they’ll tell you that the benefits were much deeper and more truly life altering, life changing than they expected it to be,” Chenowith said.


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Torsten Kjellstrand

Torsten spoke to students and faculty about visual storytelling, highlighting the importance of possessing both technical skill with media technology and also an eye for building compositions. I found his presentation to be both informative and hands-on, showing that the skills and experience he has in photojournalism would be an important component to the experience future journalism students at WSU will have.

Questions for Eric Sorensen

1) How do you find out about stories like this?

2) How did you get into writing?

3) What got you interested in science writing?

4) Are there differences between science writing and non-science writing that are less-noticable from the outside?

5) Advice for graduating seniors looking for jobs?

Adapting to changing social media

Not much is needed to win a Nook eBook Reader from the Compton Union Building at WSU. The main requirements are simple enough: Log onto Facebook, add the CUB as one of your fanpages and leave a comment on it. Of course, only one of these digital book readers is to be awarded and the chances aren’t necessarily promising. But there still remains a draw for visitors of the page powerful enough to keep wall posts rolling in.

With new social media, advertisers are looking to develop new strategies of bringing attention to their product.

While the CUB may be doing just that, having a thriving base of commenting fans, many posts on the page’s wall feature content alluding to exclusive interest in winning prizes. From Monday, Apr. 19 to the evening of Wednesday, Apr. 21, 18 percent of the wallposts either mentioned an iPad or eNook, or were requesting to be chosen as the winner of the next competition.

These new strategies are not new–enticement to buy products, with the prospect of give-aways, has been common even to Internet Websites. Olive Garden’s Win a Culinary Tour of Italy, Travel Channel’s Trip a Month Sweepstakes, and T-Mobile’s El Llamado del Futbol Sweepstakes are all devout employers of this strategy. But now, this advertising method is being brought right into the social circles of the millions of Facebook members.

The future of Facebook

Facebook announced on Wednesday at the company’s annual F8 developer’s conference in San Francisco that changes to popular social networking site will incorporate a series of “social graphing” tools.

These tools are aimed at widening the sphere and reach of an individual’s content preferences. An example provided in the conference is creating more “Like” button tools on other site, like iMDB.com, which would, in the case of a user “liking” a piece of content such as a particular movie, automatically update the user’s Facebook favorite movies list. Individuals would be able to move their preferences, after accepting agreements to do so, between their preferred Websites they visit.

Phil McGuire, a network engineer for Seattle-based Spectrum Networks, said the move by Facebook is a step forward.

“It's very exciting to see the web being used in its intended form,” McGuire said. “Tim Berners Lee, often considered the Father of the Internet, has envisioned a linked open data web from day one. I think this would be a great step toward seeing that,” he said.

H&R Block strategy

Jason Falls, whose blog post on SocialMediaExplorer.com about H&R Block in 2008 refer to a similar theme, seemed to inadvertently forecast the current trend in social media advertising.

In Fall’s blog post, he noted the effective use of the tax company’s Twitter account to befriend him and engage in “human” dialogue. Falls continued, saying that:

“As it turns out, H&R Block not only gets the outreach portion of it, but has figured out a way to be 100-percent, totally marketing/advertising to people using social media tools and somehow pull it off. No, I wasn’t sure if it was possible, but I’ll be damned if I don’t like this campaign.”

Falls attributed the company’s ability to “pull it off” with using “honest/transparent, human, fun and engaging” strategy.

Criticism of CUB strategy

Some students believe the strategy used by the CUB’s fanpage admins is bringing in more visitors, but less valuable content.

“A lot of the comments mean nothing,” said Jared Johnson, a student employee of the CUB. “I don’t know if they’re getting the result they’re looking for,” Johnson said. “There is no guarantee that they [students] are looking at your content,” he added.

However, just like the H&R Block example, the admins of the Compton Union Building are also using a similar means of connecting with students outside of using the give-away method.

CUB strategy and the H&R Block method

Admins of the page frequently reply to the posts, even a few exclusively focused on winning the give-aways.

Replies are polite and “human,” ranging from answering questions about the Murrow Symposium that was hosted in the facility, to a simple “We had a good time too ;)” in reply to a comment that read “I had a good time chilling in you.”

Despite criticism, the CUB is building a base from which to gather more responses from students, both valuable and less so. In bigger terms, though, they are adapting to a time of constantly changing social networking.

Outline

1. Lede

2. Nutgraf - CUB advertising strategy in social networks

3. Changing landscapes of social networking - Facebook F8 conference

4. H&R Block success story

5. Criticism of CUB strategy

6. CUB fits H&R Block model?

7. End- CUB is trying to adapt to chaning social networking

Sources

Phil McGuire (found online)
Network engineer - Spectrum Networks
(425)443-9127

Jason Falls (found online)
Blogger - SocialMediaExplorer.com
jason@socialmediaexplorer.com

Jared Johnson
CUB student employee
(509)520-5864

math practice

1. $78,850

2. 87%

3. 20%

4a. 25%

4b. 33%

5.  10.7%

6. 

7. $280,000

8a. 20%

8b. 1%

9. 70 of 10,000 in Pullman v. and 20 in 10,000 in Spokane

10a. $790,600

10b. $207,000

11. margin of error