It has been over a year since Alex Wilpon '10 spent her junior spring studying abroad in Prague, but her desktop background is still a photograph of the city. "I have pictures of Prague all over my room. I'm homesick for Prague all the time. I know everyone doesn't have a great experience abroad, but I certainly did," she said.
Instead of participating in the Brown-approved alternative program in Prague, Wilpon petitioned to participate in New York University's study abroad program. And Wilpon is one of many students who have chosen to petition a program to the Office of International Programs.
"Over the last few years, we have had on average between 40 and 50 students who study abroad on petition programs," Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
There are currently Brown programs in 10 countries and approved alternative programs in 50 countries. But the OIP realizes that "there may be times when a student's overall academic objectives abroad may be better met by a petition program," Brostuen wrote.
A petition can be dismissed if the student does not meet the University's language requirement for a given country or if the petition program does not fulfill faculty guidelines regarding contact hours of study, according to Brostuen. "The program needs to provide an academic opportunity the quality of which cannot be duplicated by the Brown-sponsored or Brown-approved program(s) in the students proposed country of study," he wrote.
Students usually choose to petition a program because there is not already a pre-approved program in that country, said Brostuen. But a student can successfully petition a program in a country with a competing Brown program if the student has a compelling academic reason, he said. This is more common among science concentrators who may not meet a language requirement but want a site-specific experience, he added.
Muy complicado
Petitioning a program requires a significant amount of work, but Brostuen said most students who put in the effort to submit a formal application are successful.
Julia Kim '12, currently abroad at the School for International Training program in Peru, said the overall petition process was tedious. "There was a lot of paperwork to get signed and filled out," she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Kim, who is a former Herald staff writer, wrote that she felt the OIP was somewhat supportive, but that they did not make "the entire petitioning process super clear."
Wilpon said she also found the petition process difficult. By the time she decided to study in Prague, she had missed the University's program deadline. The OIP eventually told her she could apply for the Brown program, but, by that point, Wilpon had already researched the NYU program and decided she liked it, she said.
The petition process involves a written academic rationale, several meetings with academic advisers and many forms. Wilpon said it took her almost the entire semester to obtain approval. "I started the process of petitioning the first week back at Brown in September, but it wasn't approved until late November or early December," she said.
"It was really frustrating," Wilpon said. "Different panels have to approve different parts of the petition application," she added. "I don't think they meet very often, which slows down the entire process."
Wilpon was required to put down a deposit — a fee of a few thousand dollars — for NYU before Brown even approved the program, she said, adding that she would have lost her deposit if the University rejected her petition.
Despite the frustrating process of petitioning, Wilpon said studying abroad was worth it. "It was one of the best decisions I ever made," she said. "I would do it again, even if it meant going through the same frustrations."
Easy-peasy
Still, most of the roughly 500 students who study abroad each year do so through Brown or pre-approved programs either because they find a good fit among these choices or simply because it is more convenient. Brown programs often provide on-site staff to handle organizational matters and support students.
Mariel Heupler '12 studied abroad in Buenos Aires last fall through Butler University's program. One of the reasons she did not petition a program was because she did not want to deal with the hassle of transferring credits, which she had heard could be difficult, she said. Heupler also said the OIP provided her with resources, including books, flyers and a returned student contact list.
Cody Cutting '12 recently returned from the Brown-in-Barcelona program where he said he spent an unforgettable semester. He was drawn to the program because of his interest in architecture."Barcelona and the nearby cities of Valencia and Zaragoza are hotbeds for modern and contemporary design," he wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Though Cutting was happy with the experience, he was dissatisfied with the level of coursework and often felt disconnected from the local student body, he wrote. He said a mandatory pre-departure semester of Catalan "could prove very beneficial and help students better communicate with the Catalan youth."
Brown-in-Barcelona is run through a larger consortium with three staff members responsible for administration, Sam Johnson '12, who also studied in Barcelona, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Everyone in the program loved the staff members, who were effective at handling the often aggravating task of matriculation to the city's universities, he wrote.
Regardless of which study abroad option a student considers, the guiding principle for choosing a program should be "academic fit," Brostuen said.
That "academic fit" might be found in a more thematic, research-based program. Kim said she found the hands-on approach to cultural studies she was looking for in the SIT Peru program where she lives in a home-stay and does her own fieldwork . "I wanted to experience the culture and do something I wouldn't be able to do at Brown," she wrote. "So far, it has been great overall."
