The International Center, offering study abroad and exchange programs throughout Rowan University, has announced that they will now be giving up to $40,000 in scholarships for study abroad students.

Gokhan Alkanat, the associate provost for international education, aspires for scholarships to promote students’ accessibility to studying overseas and to highlight the affordable programs offered for education abroad.

“We have programs over there that are almost zero dollar cost, including flight,” said Alkanat. “One of our main goals here is to provide programs for not only students who could afford it, but also students who may otherwise not be able to afford it and might be coming from low-income families.”

The center focuses on offering a variety of study abroad and exchange programs. With the university offering hundreds of study abroad programs, some range from being more on the high-end spectrum, costing up to thousands of dollars, while others are marketed for less than a thousand dollars to no cost.

“The goal is just one thing: make it accessible. If you think studying abroad is super expensive, that’s not the case. We’ll prove you wrong because we have free options here as well,” said Alkanat.

Laura Kahler, the advisor for education abroad students, hopes for students to know that there are affordable options available for them to study abroad. Kahler went from having no desire to want to go overseas as a senior in college to finding her career working in the study abroad field. Studying abroad allowed her to become immersed in the culture of her host family in Seville, Spain.

“One of my favorite things was cooking with my host mother, she taught me all of her recipes,” said Kahler. “I was in the south of Spain in Seville, and she taught me all the things to cook in Spanish. I was using my language skills learning how to cook with her, so that was one of my most cherished moments.”

Faculty-led programs, third-party study abroad programs, and exchange programs are the three programs the center offers. Rowan faculty members can have a class that has a travel option that will typically be for two weeks. Multiple third-party study abroad programs are partnered with the center that places students in universities throughout the world. Rowan also has about 10 partner universities for exchange programs, including England, Germany, and Korea, where each university sends students to each other.

Alkanat finds that exchange programs can be an affordable option for students.

“The system here is a little different; you pay your tuition at Rowan, and you go study there. When they pay their tuition at their institution, they come to study here,” said Alkanat. “You can use your financial aid and all of those, and it is much more affordable.”

Isabela Saltar, a freshman concentrating in the 3+4 Accelerated BS/DVM Pathway Program, is interested in education abroad and wants to learn more about opportunities for traveling overseas while studying veterinary medicine.

“I’m just curious because I haven’t traveled out of the country per se, so I’m just interested in what it has to offer, learning about different countries and stuff like that,” said Saltar.

World Endeavors works with Rowan to combine students’ study abroad experience with an internship. Gabriel Alvarez, the academic relations representative for World Endeavors, spent his college years internationally volunteering in South Africa and living in Ireland. Alvarez found that traveling abroad allowed him to make connections across the world.

“I was living in Ireland, it was partially a work thing, and I was basically getting to just wake up every day, take the bus, go meet Irish people, go experience the culture, live the life,” said Alvarez. “It was a lot of fun meeting a lot of different people from not just Ireland but around the world. Now I can go to pretty much any country in Europe and South America and have a place to stay.”

The International Center’s office sends out about 200 students to study abroad each year. They hope to grow these numbers and plan to host study abroad fairs each semester to build up the momentum for students to gauge interest in these opportunities.

“When students do something like this, it really helps them to stand out from the rest of the crowd because such a small amount of U.S. students take advantage of an opportunity like this,” said Kahler. “So doing this helps them differentiate themselves for when they are looking for jobs when they are looking for internships, things like that.”

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