The Office of Academic Programs Abroad and the Louisiana Department of Economic Development held a reception at the Faculty Club Thursday night honoring students returning from studying abroad a semester or more.
Students lived in such countries as Korea, France, Malta, England, Spain, Iceland and Turkey.
The number of students studying abroad has been going up every year, APA Director Margaret Parker said.
Kristina Rodriguez, a business management senior who spent last semester in Suwon, South Korea, said the experience allowed her the opportunity to sample a lot of different cultures.
“I tried more things over there than I did here,” she said.
There is one image she remembers from the airport.
“Crowded,” she said.
The city is built up, not out like American cities, Rodriguez said.
“I got off the plane, and people would run into me and not say ‘Excuse me,'” she said. “There was just no room for all the people.”
Parker said one misconception students have about studying abroad is the amount of money needed.
“Studying abroad does not cost as much as you might think,” Parker said.
Students are not aware TOPS will cover their tuition abroad and scholarships are available as well, she said. APA does suggest students bring extra money to travel.
Four fifth-year landscape architecture students — Byron Pogue, Wes Penn, Brian Goad and Glenn Butler — traveled to China, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan and Thailand with landscape architecture professor Max Conrad.
Pogue and Goad were roommates in Beijing for a semester.
“I would definitely recommend it to anyone,” Goad said. “You get so much more out of it than in a classroom.”
Parker said students think they will lose a semester by studying abroad. If they plan ahead, the credits often will transfer, she said.
The educational value outweighs any credits, Goad said. The history they experienced by living and traveling in a foreign country was incredible.
“You’ll be in a rice field and see a bridge that is 800 years old,” Goad said. “That’s three times as old as the United States.”
Parker encouraged students to consider studying in countries other than the United Kingdom. A lot of students incorrectly think English-speaking countries are their only option. For that reason, more people are studying in countries such as Australia, she said.
Fears about anti-American sentiments abroad play a factor in students’ experiences as well.
In South Korea, people harbor resentment toward the United States, but it is impossible to understand it fully until one has been there, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez and her international friends, who visited the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, would say they were Canadian because no Koreans dislike Canadians.
The landscape architecture students met little resentment in the countries they traveled. One thing that stood out was the friendliness of the Asian people, they said.
“If we were standing on the sidewalk looking at our maps, soon we would have a crowd of 20 people trying to help us out,” they said. “And none of them would speak English.”
The people they met in China and Japan think Americans are violent because the U.S. allows its citizens to own guns, Pogue said. Citizens in Japan and China are not allowed to own guns.
Despite the instability in some international countries, the students agreed the experience was worth it.
“You can look at a picture of Cambodia,” Butler said. “But until you go over there and experience, there’s no way you can know what it’s like.”