A new program helps first-generation students explore study abroad
When James Russell first got an email telling him about a University of Kentucky study-abroad program for first-generation-college students like him, he thought it might be some sort of scam. “You’ve got to admit, a fully paid study-abroad trip — that seems a little fishy,” he said.
Russell, now a sophomore computer-science major, decided to attend a study-abroad fair to make sure the message was legit. It checked out, and this past summer, he was one of 60 Kentucky students to spend three weeks in Dublin or London, part of a pilot program called Explore First, which combines academics, cultural activities, and career prep.
In addition to being the first in their families to go to college, nearly all the students were Pell Grant recipients, said Susan M. Roberts, the university’s associate provost for internationalization. Many were from rural communities, and the group was significantly more racially diverse than the university’s undergraduate population as a whole.
For Russell, studying abroad wasn’t even on his radar. “Where I’m from, it can be a big deal to go to other states, let alone other countries,” he said. “As a guy from eastern Kentucky, I never thought I’d have the opportunity to go abroad.”
The program — a collaboration between Roberts’s team and the university’s offices of first-generation student success and career services — is an effort to reach students often missing from education abroad. But its goal isn’t simply to expand horizons: Research shows that international study can improve academic outcomes, and those impacts can be outsize for students who are first gen, low income, or from underrepresented minority groups.
University of Kentucky researchers will track the academic performance of participants, including retention, grades, and graduation rates, against predictive models and their peers. Explore First is part of broader campus efforts to support the roughly one-third of the student body that is first generation, said Kirsten Turner, vice president for student success.
Niamh Larson, executive director of education abroad and exchanges, said she and her colleagues had been working to develop programming to reach broader groups of students, and with a career focus, which can appeal to students for whom the cultural aspects of studying overseas may not resonate. But Explore First got a jump-start thanks to a scholarship program approved by the state’s General Assembly to fund international exchange. The scholarship program also supports refugee and displaced students at colleges in the state, and institutions provide some matching funds.
The university covered most of the costs of the program, including travel and housing, with students paying only for meals and incidentals. That was important to Russell, who is on a full scholarship.
But finances often aren’t the factor holding first-gen and other underrepresented students back from studying abroad, and administrators tried to design the four-credit program with those hurdles in mind. The relatively short length meant that students could travel abroad while still holding summer jobs. London and Dublin are international cities but English speaking, “so we weren’t adding an additional layer of language difference on top of the cultural difference,” Larson said.
The students went abroad in small cohorts, of 15 students each, and got to know one another and their team leaders, from the first-gen and career offices, through weekly pre-departure sessions. The meetings prepared students culturally and logistically, such as helping them apply for passports.
“I had never really traveled — I had never been out of the country or on a plane before,” said Hallie Rice, a senior political-science major from Louisville. “This trip was a lot of firsts for me.”
The career focus was also a deliberate choice, giving the students, many of whom were freshmen or sophomores, an early start on career planning. “We want our students to be career ready and global ready,” Roberts said.
Each group visited eight or nine companies, like Accenture, Abbey Capital, and Diageo, many of which have offices both in Kentucky and Dublin or London. “It made the global to local tangible,” Turner said. Students learned about corporate culture, networked, and met with executives who were themselves first-generation students. One company tutored students on résumé writing; another held mock interviews.
During class sessions, students learned how to use LinkedIn and other social-networking sites, created “purpose” pitches, and studied strategies for winning internships and jobs. They also wrote reflection papers on their experience abroad.
For Rice, conversations with a career-services staff member on the London program gave her the confidence to start a nonprofit group focused on homelessness. And after visiting London’s University of Westminster, she is considering applying there for graduate school, to study international relations.
While Explore First is a pilot program, its organizers are optimistic that it will reach more students. Kentucky administrators “get it,” Roberts said.
Russell calls his experience “life changing.” He lived on the Trinity College Dublin campus, visited Belfast and Edinburgh, and ate Guinness stew and falafel for the first time. He hopes to do an internship or co-op overseas and would like to study abroad again, maybe in Italy. “I know it might sound cheesy,” he said, “but I have a new passion to learn about as many cultures as I can.”