6-Week Pre-Departure Orientation Plan

As an international educator, I'm very passionate about using my knowledge and skills towards helping people adjust to a new environment— it's no surprise that education abroad would be an appropriate field for that specialty! 

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While one can get so much learning and growth from immersing themselves in the culture of another country, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of preparing students to go abroad, but how should we approach the preparation stages? What elements of "preparation" should matter?

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One of the biggest challenges I had when studying in Spain were things my university never prepared me for— being a racial minority American female abroad. While most pre-departure orientations tackle on general health and safety abroad (which is great), there are many things that could be improved. 

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Questions that we might consider in measuring the effectiveness of preparing a student to live in another country are:

1. Are students learning anything the host culture they would be living in?

2. Are we addressing sensitive topics that are inevitable to face when abroad (identity, race, gender, etc)?

3. If we integrate past study abroad student perspectives for prospective students, who is represented? Who is left out?

4. Who is leading the orientation? Do they know anything about the student's host culture?

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Overall, are we providing students with a good foundation of knowledge, or could we be setting up students to start their immersion with biases and ethnocentric thinking?

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I would like to remodel what pre-departure orientation could be like, where while there is still importance in cultural challenges, there is a shift towards addressing individual challenges— and how culture is intertwined with those challenges. 

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In my plan, we develop students' foundation of cultural knowledge and self-awareness. By utilizing different forms of interaction (online and in person; asynchronous and synchronous engagement, faculty and students; culture-specific learning and abstract identity-focused learning), we can establish a strong and impactful plan that leaves students with a better sense of what they could expect abroad.