Madalyn Chase, a recent UO graduate, had her original study abroad plans thwarted at the beginning of the pandemic.
“The summer between my sophomore and junior year I was supposed to go to the Copenhagen Business School,” she said. The program was canceled, and although Chase was offered the option to do the program virtually, it wasn’t what she was looking for. She later got an email from GEO that another program they offered, Psychology and Business in London, was going in person.
“It started in April, and I got this email in March,” Chase said. “I applied on a whim and was so excited when I got in because I had been waiting forever to study abroad.”
Chase was the last of five students that joined the program. The other four students in her program had applied the year before, but the program was postponed to the summer of 2021. “They had all been on this emotional roller-coaster of if they would get to go or not get to go,” Chase said.
As UO students continue to persevere through the pandemic, any study abroad programs have been canceled or pushed back because of travel restrictions and quarantine regulations. Although these barriers exist, UO students and faculty are still working hard to keep study abroad programs running. Things might look different than they did before the pandemic, but many Ducks are more than willing to adjust to a new normal while thousands of miles away from Eugene.
Choosing to fly out or log onto Zoom
Students choose to study abroad for various reasons, from learning a new language to building community in a different country. While online study abroad options have been available throughout the pandemic, they don’t make the cut for many students interested in exploring another culture.
Autumn Lukens, a first-year student who is hoping to study abroad in Italy during the summer of 2022, wants to learn Italian and earn language credits. Lukens will have to take part-time classes next year in order to earn in-state tuition, so she’s trying to fulfill her language requirement with an immersion program over the summer. “I have always really wanted to go to Italy,” Lukens said. She took a gap year and was originally going to be an “au pair” in Italy, but when COVID hit, her international travel plans were put on hold.
Chase found that one of the biggest benefits of her study abroad program in London was building connections with the people involved. She said she got really close to her professors and Mary Hiles and Amanda Milburn, the heads of the GEO center in London. There were only three or four people in each of her classes, so the interactions Chase had with her professors were very personal.
“I still email with my professors, and I’m still in contact with Mary and Amanda because we had that opportunity to get so close to them,” Chase said. “I think that made the program so special and made up for anything that could have been missing.”
In response to the pandemic, UO moved many of its 2020 and 2021 study abroad programs online. Many students don’t see virtual options as adequate replacements for studying abroad. Lukens said she is “really nervous” that the study abroad program she wants to do will move online. “I just want to go,” Lukens said. “I don’t really care if things are closed or if I can’t do specific things. I just think it’s really important in furthering your education to study in a different country and learn about a different culture.”
For some students, the value of studying abroad lies in the traveling itself. UO senior Oscar Sigala chose his current exchange program in Prague and the Czech Republic because of its location. “Prague is in the middle of Europe, and it’s my first time in Europe so I wanted to have the ability to travel,” he said. Sigala’s plans to tour Europe were challenged by the new wave of COVID, but he still was able to see a lot of places on his list before Omicron really hit. “I got here the last week of September, and October and November were still a good time to travel,” he said. “There were fewer restrictions.” Despite the new wave of COVID, Sigala still got to travel to Barcelona, Budapest, Krakow and Vienna.
Students doing studying abroad programs in March of 2020 had to complete them online to earn credit. “It was exactly the same as it was at UO,” Amanda Milburn, the director of the GEO center in London, said. “Students went home and classes went online.” The London GEO center did a lot of remote experiences in the 2020/21 academic year. “It allowed us to connect with students who weren’t able to study abroad but still wanted that international element,” Milburn said.
Milburn explained that rising seniors who graduated in 2021 and students who were planning to study abroad in the future and wanted a head-start were prime candidates for these programs. “I was really proud of what we were able to achieve during the online programs,” Milburn said. GEO facilitated a conversation partner program with students from other schools in Southeast Asia and China who weren’t able to travel to the US but wanted to practice their English. Guest lectures were also available over Zoom, with faculty from the UK joining classes from the U.S. “You never would have thought, pre-pandemic, that someone would come into your class from the UK on Zoom,” Milburn said.
Navigating COVID-19 safety restrictions in a different country
Students studying abroad have to get used to new, and oftentimes stricter, COVID-19 guidelines. As of Jan. 5, 2022, countries such as Canada, India and Italy have issued a shelter in place protocol similar to that of March 2020. The United States is a step below these countries, recommending but not requiring that its citizens stay indoors. France, Spain and Germany have chosen to restrict international travel along with the United States, making it harder to get in and out of the country.
“London has a lot more restrictions than the US does,” Chase said. “When we got there, the US was relaxing their mask mandates and easing up on all of their restrictions. But when we got to London, we weren’t even allowed to go into the GEO building for the first couple weeks.”
Milburn elaborated on the COVID-19 restrictions in London. “Regardless of your vaccination status, if you’re a student or in higher education, you have to take a lateral flow COVID test twice a week,” she said. Milburn has been taking them twice a week since March of 2021, and they are available for free because of the UK’s socialized healthcare system. Milburn explained that the tests take 15 minutes and that you can report your result to the National Health Service with a QR code. “It’s a good way of knowing, especially when you’re meeting people, if you have COVID asymptomatically,” Milburn said.
As an American institution in the UK, the GEO center in London had to decide between following US or UK COVID-19 guidelines. “We decided that whichever rule was the strictest, that’s the one we would follow,” Milburn said. Things like social distancing and household mixing rules, which were loosened in summer 2021 in the US, were still very much in place in the UK. The US also has exemptions for people who were vaccinated, which the UK didn’t have. “This has more to do more with our kind of cultures around healthcare,” Milburn said.
As an American in Europe, Sigala said it’s difficult to provide proof of vaccination. “We have our CDC cards, but everyone here uses a QR code which is so much easier,” he said. Sigala explained that the EU offers a digital vaccine passport with a scannable QR code, which some consider more streamlined and efficient than a physical vaccine card. “Sometimes when you go somewhere and they ask you for your vaccination, you show them the card, and they look at it for the longest time,” Sigala said. “It can be easily replicated. It’s better with the barcode system.”
If Sigala doesn’t get his booster shot before Feb. 1, he will be considered unvaccinated in Prague. “I had my flight back home set for Feb. 10 or 12,” Sigala said. “So most likely I will head home in late January or early February.” He’s considering getting his booster while he’s abroad but doesn’t know how it will transfer on to his record in the US. “If I get my shot here, I have to figure out if it will count back home,” Sigala said.
Some students are concerned that the US isn’t taking COVID-19 seriously enough to maintain in-person study abroad options. Lukens said she is afraid other countries won’t want to take American citizens because the U.S. hasn’t taken the pandemic as seriously. “Hopefully everyone gets their boosters, and we can still do international travel,” she said.
Despite the challenges COVID-19 has created, Sigala is optimistic about the future of study abroad programs. “I think eventually study abroad programs will return to what they were before COVID,” Sigala said. “Even though there were restrictions with COVID, I think the first few months I was here I got a good general study abroad experience.” Sigala was still able to travel, attend school and participate in events for exchange students.
Safe but still fun
Milburn and her colleagues at GEO were challenged to come up with a study abroad experience that was “interesting and exciting for students who came in knowing not everything was open.” Students couldn’t travel to different countries on the weekends like they usually do, and as a result, they got to know London really well. Milburn and her coworker Mary Hiles lead walking tours around the city in lieu of the other usual weekend or indoor activities.
She led a tour on a street called Brick Lane that students liked so much it’s a regular part of the London programs now. The street is rich with the cultural history of Bengali migrants, Jewish migrants and French Huguenots. “We started the tour at the oldest bagel shop in London, and walked, looking at the beautiful political street art,” Milburn said, “and we finished at an outdoor market.” The market was still open and completely COVID safe, so students had the opportunity to shop around. “You just have to consider what to do outside and what you can do with the cityscape,” Milburn said.
Kaelene Spence, the institutional relations specialist at GEO, follows the same train of thinking as Milburn. “Students aren’t going on a five different country experience,” she said, “but they said that’s only enriched their study abroad experience.” Staying in one place rather than traveling to multiple countries allows students to fully immerse themselves in the culture.
Spence believes that students’ interests in studying abroad have peaked after the pandemic. “They’ve been stuck inside for so long, and they want to get out and explore,” she said. Spence thinks that students are still getting all the important aspects of a study abroad experience, just in a different way. She also detailed the safety precautions that GEO is taking, saying that some students feel safer abroad than they do in the U.S. because of stricter COVID guidelines.
“If people want to study abroad, it’s still possible with COVID,” Sigala said. Sigala, Chase and Milburn all agreed that students are still able to have a fulfilling experience abroad, even if it looks a little different than it did before the pandemic. “Studying abroad can change your whole outlook on life,” Chase said. “If you want to go abroad, don’t let the pandemic stop you.”
