Ohio University and international students will both travel abroad in pursuit of a business-related degree.
At OU, students are attracted to its finance program. Across the water, most OU students studying abroad are majoring in business.
According to the most recent annual OU study abroad data released in the Open Doors report for the 2011-12 school year, the most highly represented major for students traveling elsewhere is those in the College of Arts and Sciences with nearly 250 students.
Open Doors notes that this data does not include OU’s Honors Tutorial College, which traditionally has a high rate of students participating.
For international students coming to OU, the most popular major is finance with 135 students enrolled, according to the university’s data for the 2012-13 school year on the Institutional Research website.
“If a student is sitting on the fence it might be a matter of finding a program that fits their comfort level in terms of how much structure there is, how much independence there is … there is a huge spectrum out there,” said Catherine Marshall, director of OU’s Office of Education Abroad.
The OU Office of Education Abroad provides a list of study abroad programs to OU students that directly correlate with their majors.
Marshall noted that one program that has gained an increase in interest is the tropical disease research program in Ecuador, which is overseen by Mario Grijalva, a professor of biological medical sciences and director of OU’s Tropical Disease Institute.
“Grijalva is one of the reasons our Ecuador numbers are so high,” Marshall said.
“What started out as a biology based program has morphed into this very broad, interdisciplinary program that is touching communities in the area where they are working. He is bringing in students from all sorts of colleges and majors.”
While OU students can choose a variety of lengths for their study abroad experiences — some as short as one week — very few international students are at OU for a semester or less, said Krista McCallum Beatty, director of International Student and Faculty Services.
“They are almost all degree seeking students. So they are here for the length of time it takes to complete their degree,” McCallum Beatty said.
cs951612@ohiou.edu
