Considerations of When to Study Abroad

Edited to add: after today’s Daily Deac was initially published, the campus received a message that Brad Jones, who has served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for more than a decade, has announced plans to step down June 30, 2023. Following a research leave, he will return to the faculty in the chemistry department. You can read the full message here.

Each fall, a large number of current sophomores begin making plans to study abroad. Study abroad is an incredible experience – it was by far my best semester at Wake – and I encourage all students to consider studying abroad. That said, there are some nuances to study abroad that are worth considering upfront.

Information for families with students who plan to go abroad (likely mainly P’25s):

We tend to have many more students study abroad in the fall rather than the spring (interestingly, most of our peer schools are the opposite – more go abroad in spring). BUT, if we have more students go abroad in fall, it impacts University housing for their return in the spring (I am known for telling my advisees that there is no magical, unicorn residence hall sitting empty each fall waiting for juniors studying abroad to return in the spring). 

In practical terms, what this means is it is very likely that students returning from a fall semester abroad will be filling in an empty bed in an existing room, not living in a double room or suite/apartment with their best friend(s) (which they could do if they stayed on campus in the fall and went abroad in the spring instead).

We tell students about their housing options in a number of ways, including info sessions about study abroad, and in individual meetings between students and Study Abroad Advisors. In addition, when students sign their Study Abroad Student Agreement, it includes the following: 

• Residential students who participate in study abroad/away are still subject to the residency requirement, with their semester abroad counting towards the six-semester requirement. 
• Students with less than six semesters of housing credit should not make any plans to live off-campus unless they have been released in writing from the residency requirement by the Office of Residence Life and Housing.
• Students studying abroad during the fall semester will NOT select housing during Housing Selection. Instead, students abroad for the fall semester will select their housing for the spring semester online in December.
• Students returning from study away programs in the fall have limited housing options for the spring and are often placed into rooms with open beds, meaning they may be living with new roommates.
• Students studying abroad for the fall semester should plan to live on-campus unless they have been released in writing from the residency requirement by the Office of Residence Life and Housing.    

Students are given a Post-Acceptance Checklist (after they commit to a fall abroad program) with similar language.

Students planning to go abroad – for 2023 or beyond – should be asking themselves these kinds of questions to make an informed decision and consider what is most important to them:

Am I willing to compromise on which semester I go abroad, knowing there are pros and cons to each semester?

If I go abroad in the fall, will I have such a good time that it will be worth it even if I have to select a room with an open bed and live with someone I don’t already know when I return (i.e., I can’t room with one of my friends)?

Would I be better thinking about going abroad in the spring, that way I can be on campus the fall of my junior year (and will be able to select the residence hall room/roommate of my choice for the fall)?

For those who choose to go abroad in the fall, when it comes time for room selection for the spring semester, students will have to recall the trade-off they made: I wanted to go in the fall with my group of friends, and that means that it is likely I will share a room that has an empty bed when I return, and I might not already know my new roommate. 

(As an aside, students should be open to the possibility that living with someone they didn’t previously know might work out just fine! Sometimes being paired in a room with someone you didn’t know previously might be the beginning of an amazing new friendship you would never have discovered otherwise.) 

We share this now because we want parents and families to be aware of the likely outcome for spring semester housing after a fall abroad: most students will likely be able to be accommodated on campus in existing rooms with vacancies, and should not sign leases for housing off campus unless/until they are released in writing from the Office of Residence Life and Housing, which will not happen until November. And if the idea of living with someone they don’t know is a big deal to your Deac, they may want to consider switching their abroad application to a spring semester.