Are global communication technologies—e-mail, worldwide Internet access, satellite phones—undermining the personal-growth benefit of studying abroad?

By ANDY DAPPEN

Is it possible these days for students to suffer the isolation of being a stranger in a strange land and reap the rewards of mastering the unfamiliar when they can so easily reach out and touch someone at home?

Last year Puget Sound sent 200 students to more than 36 countries, a significant increase in study-abroad participation compared to the 80 students per year who studied abroad in the late 1980s. Now about 30 percent of graduating seniors will have spent at least one semester abroad.

But while the appeal of these programs may be growing, Jannie Meisberger, director of international programs at UPS, admits, “New technologies have the potential of diminishing the cultural and personal benefits. Used to be you either sank or swam. But timid students now have a flotation device—by staying in touch with home, they don’t have to be uncomfortable emotionally.”

Professor Michael Veseth, the Watson Fellowship coordinator for the university, concurs, “Once, study abroad programs created a splendid sense of isolation in a new world of foreign language, customs, and cultures.” The Watson Fellowship finances a year of independent study abroad that was once particularly isolating because its fellows had no universities overseeing them, could not count upon cheap and nearly universal telephone, fax, and Internet access, and most fellows were first-time international travelers. Now, Veseth observes, “Even in remote parts of the world, few students feel truly isolated because of telecommunications technology, especially e-mail. But even if they get out of e-mail range, there is still CNN to remind them of home. Patrick Egan, an International Political Economy senior this year, spent part of the summer studying nomadic herdsmen in Mongolia. Their huts, often hundreds of miles from the nearest town, came equipped with solar-powered satellite TV reception.”

But while the foreign experience has changed, Veseth believes easy correspondence with friends, family, and overseeing professors is largely a healthy development. “Students are encouraged to meet new people and try new things because they have the support and encouragement of their friends and family. Also, their e-mails home provide a useful opportunity to reflect on the experience in a far better way than scribbling postcards.”

Meisberger refers to these reflective e-mails as a form of “electronic journaling” and says the process gives family and friends a sense of being there with the student. “More people share in the experience, and this is enriching to everyone.” Furthermore, by saving their messages, students have a permanent record of the experience. “These e-mails often capture the essence of a student’s time abroad—they provide a rich history of one’s academic and personal growth.”

Partly because technology keeps parents engaged in their child’s foreign studies, Meisberger maintains more now visit their child at the end of a study-abroad program. “By this time students have developed stronger language skills, they’ve learned to navigate the region’s non-tourist attractions, they are the local experts and in control of the situation. For parents who sent their children off with fear and trepidation, this is a wonderful transformation.”

But Watson Fellow Elena Moon ’95, who traveled in Papua New Guinea and Australia in 1995-96, is not as effusive about the dividends of global connectivity. Working on her research at a time when e-mailing or phoning home was not easy, she valued the introspection, self reliance, and self confidence her experience afforded. “Without frequent e-mails and phone calls, students are challenged to confront the loneliness and disorientation that foreign travel often brings. That is as much a part of being abroad as learning French or how Aborigines use body paint to convey their mythology.”

Which is not to say that Moon is an advocate of communication blackouts. “Some experiences strengthen, others scar. The ability to communicate with the right people at key times can make the difference between the two.” But too much communication, says Moon, delivers diminishing returns—which is why even today she takes a metered approach to her communiqués: “When I travel now I limit my e-mails to a handful of messages … anything more and I cheat myself of the full experience.”

Professor Veseth stresses the need for balance. Although modern communications can be intrusive to the student seeking an opportunity for cultural immersion and personal reflection, they are also very useful. Armed with today’s communication technologies, he believes students can be better informed about the places they will visit, manage their “real” lives from afar (register for classes, research grants, manage finances), receive guidance from parents and instructors who can enrich their studies, and seize late-breaking opportunities in ways that just weren’t possible in the snail-mail era. All this helps students derive more from their foreign experiences.

Using the Internet ahead of arrival helps students research the countries they will be visiting, Meisberger agrees. They can read foreign newspapers online, illuminating what’s afoot abroad. Once on site, e-mails and phone calls home can ease the transition period. “If used wisely, these technologies are a blessing,” she says.

Ultimately, whether global communication technologies are a blessing or an obstacle may boil down to how they are used. Says Veseth, “Students must be careful not to substitute virtual relationships for real ones and miss out on study abroad opportunities. They must be careful not to get so wrapped up in their lives back home that they forget why they decided to study abroad in the first place.”