NEW OPTIONS FOR STUDY ABROAD AT THE UO
SUMMER OPTIONS
Art (studio, several media)
on the island of Spetses
semester or year
offered through the Athens program
Business, Culture and Language Studies
Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
Ewha Women's University, Seoul, South Korea
Creative writing on the island of Spetses
offered through the Athens program
GAIAS: The Galapagos Academic Institute
for the Arts & Sciences
offered through the USFQ Program, Ecuador
Field studies in Transylvania
Romania and Hungary
offered through the Budapest program
German Language in Berlin
offered through the Cologne program
HIV / AIDS in Western Europe (pre-med)
DIS Denmark
Literature or Medieval Studies
Cambridge, England
Nursing in Scandinavia
D/S Denmark
Czech Republic Summer Program
social sciences
offered through the Prague program
Scandinavian Glass Design
D/S Denmark
Theater arts on the island of Spetses
offered through the Athens program
ACADEMIC YEAR OPTIONS
Advanced Italian Courses
fall, winter, spring
offered through the Siena program
Culture and Media Studies (film)
semester or year
Aalborg University, Denmark
Ecuadorian Rainforest Field Station
independent research / advanced science students
offered through the USFQ Program, Ecuador
GAIAS: The Galapagos Academic Institute
for the Arts & Sciences
social & natural sciences
offered through the USFQ Program, Ecuador
Honors courses & most subjects
semester or year
National University of Singapore
Human Rights in Latin America (new course)
Rosario, Argentina
International studies or language
semester, year or summer
Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
Joint academics / internships in France
most subjects & fields
yearlong (with one semester of each)
or academic year plus summer internship
offered through the Lyon and Poitiers programs
London internships in your first term
most fields; fall, winter, spring
offered through the London AHA program
Marine sciences & marine studies
semester or year
University of Bergen, Norway
Molecular biology
either semester
DIS Denmark
Most subjects
semester or year
National Taiwan University Taipei
Most subjects
spring semester
University of Hong Kang
New courses in journalism & social science
semester or year
University of Tampere, Finland
Psychology
course work and practicum; semester or year
Aalborg University Denmark
Sciences and social sciences
semester, year or even-year summers
Hokkaido University Sapporo, Japan
Sustainable Community Development
bland of Kefalonia, Greece (AHA)
Why Chinol? About a third of the world's people live
in China, many of them in one of its 172 cities with over
1 million people living inside the city limits.
(By comparison, the United States has nine such cities
— the nearest one being Los Angeles!) The ability to work
in China and with Chinese colleagues will be one of the
most important hiring criteria of the twenty-first century.
IE3 GLOBAL INTERNSHIP SITES
Adoption Advocates International
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
AMCHAM: American Chamber of Commerce
Santiago, Chile
Amigos de las Aves
Alajuela, Cos fa Rica
Assorted internships in many fields
Florence, Italy; London, England
Child Family Health International
Capetown, South Africa
Centro de Estudios Pluriculturales (CEPCU)
Multicultural Studies Center
Qtavalo, Ecuador
Coleaia San Bartolome
& CoTegia Parque de Espaha
Rosario, Argentina
Comparative Urban
& Rural Health Care Rotation
Child Family Health International (CFHI)
Quito and Chone, Ecuador
COOPE Sol I DAR
Cooperative for Social Action
and Sustainable Development
San Jose, Costa Rica
Cuba Environmental Education:
Foundation for Nature and Humanity
(temporarily suspended due to federal government rules)
Havana, Cuba
Fulbright Commission
London, England
Independent Institute for Environmental
Concerns (UfU)
8orlin, Gormany
Institute for Law and Environmental
Governance (ILEG)
Nairobi Kenya
The London School
Bithkok, Kyrgyzstan
Nafana Presbyterian Secondary School
Sampa, Ghana
PACEMED Emergency Medical System
Son Miguol da Albndv. Mexico
Rabuor Village Project
Rabaor, Kenya
Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh, Scotland
SEDEJ (Servicios para el Desarrollo de los
Jovenes): working with at-risk children
NGO development and support (two positions)
Santiago, Chib
Sigurthur Nordal Institute
Reykjavik, (upland
Starfish Country Home and School
Chiang Mai Province Thailand
Tostan
hat run in Sonagat rmw mbt in Guinea
Tronwell English Institute
Santiago, Chib
Women in Progress
Sampa, Ghana
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"WE DESPERATELY NEED TO UNDERSTAND OTHER COUNTRIES AND OTHER CULTURES - FRIEND AND FOE ALIKE.
WE ARE UNNECESSARILY PUTTING OURSELVES AT RISK BECAUSE OF OUR STUBBORN MONOLINGUALISM AND IGNORANCE OF THE WORLD."
- National Strategic Task Force on Study Abroad, November 2003
INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE AND OVERSEAS STUDY
Intercultural competence may be defined
as an individual's awareness of other cultures
and cultural differences, knowledge about
how to negotiate cultural differences with
value-neutral methods, and skills for interacting
with people from other cultural backgrounds
in mutually beneficial ways.
As recent world events demonstrate,
intercultural competence is both very important
and in short supply.
In addition, intercultural competence is the
buzzword in offices of human resources from
multinational companies to universities to even
relatively local firms. Everyone wants to hire
new employees who are able to expand the
ability of their organization or business to
serve the needs and interests of more and
more diverse populations - and the trend will
only grow as the "global village" continues
to integrate!
To develop intercultural competence, you
must go through several stages of personal
and professional development. These stages
do not necessarily occur only in a linear
pattern but may overlap, and you may
experience several developments at once.
The generally recognized stages (developed
by Dutch scholar Geert Hofstede) include:
Awareness. An understanding that you
have learned to see things through a particular
cultural "lens," and that this lens is not a natural
or normal way to see things, but a culturally
created one, is the first part of developing
awareness. Once you begin to understand
this fact, you may also start to become aware
of the wide variety of cultural "lenses" that
exist, and the many different systems of
knowledge and values that underlie them.
Knowledge. Generally, awareness gives
way to the accumulation of knowledge
through many different forms of exploration:
foreign language learning, cross-cultural
course work, meeting people (while in your
home country or traveling) and speaking with
them, reading international websites and, of
course, studying abroad.
Skills. Increased exposure to other cultures
helps you develop the ability to recognize
the symbolism, value structures and ways
of thinking and feeling that are integral parts
of those cultures. Once you can "read"
and "negotiate" these structures, you have
the ability to bridge differences and work
with people who have very little in common
with yourself. These abilities become
increasingly transferable to working with
people from yet other cultures as your
intercultural competence increases.
The absolute best way to develop
intercultural competence is to study or intern
overseas. No other experience exposes you
to the range, depth and intensity of cultural
differences and cross-cultural scenarios that
placing yourself in a long-term intercultural
interaction does. This fact is the reason that so
many employers and graduate schools seek
applicants with overseas experience, and also
why the UO is dedicated to making studying
or interning abroad an option for every
UO student.
With so much in our global future resting on
our ability to communicate and interact across
cultural boundaries, you'll be helping yourself
and the world at large by studying abroadl ■
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