Clark’s Faculty Speaker Series continued last Thursday in Gaiser Hall 213 with a lecture discussing the unique challenges faced by community college students who want to study abroad.
The lecture, titled “Square Pegs in Round Holes: Making the Study Abroad Experience Meaningful for Community College Students,” was hosted by David Kosloski, a communication studies professor who taught courses in Florence, Italy during Spring 2015.
“Traditionally, the infrastructure that we’ve created for study abroad is for the baccalaureate student who’s on the tail end of their education,” Kosloski said.
Baccalaureate students who study abroad are typically college seniors who choose their location based on their major. Many community college students who study abroad are at the beginning of their college careers, according to Kosloski.
Studying abroad can be prohibitively expensive for some community college students, Kosloski said. In comparison, for many baccalaureate students, the cost of studying abroad isn’t significantly more than normal tuition.
Despite the challenges, the number of Clark students who have chosen to study abroad has risen over time. Before 2012, 1 to 2 students would study abroad per year, while 1 to 2 students now study abroad per quarter, Kosloski said.
