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International Education

O'Dowd Hall, Room 328
586 Pioneer Drive
Rochester, MI 48309-4482
(location map)
(248) 370-2889
ie@oakland.edu

Office hours
Mon - Fri: 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

In-person and virtual advising hours
Mon - Fri: 9 a.m. - noon and 1 - 4 p.m.

Walk-in advising hours
Mon - Thurs: 1 - 3 p.m.

Alex Zimmerman, Director
(248) 370-2843
azimmerman@oakland.edu

Studying abroad creates unforgettable experiences.
Gain a global perspective through hands-on learning while fulfilling academic requirements and expanding career opportunities. OU offers over 300 programs in more than 45 countries spanning across six continents for nearly every major. Map out your future on our Search Programs. Find programs based on your major, desired location, desired term, and other options.

How to get the process started? Make an appointment to see an adviser (in person or virtually) or come to our walk-in advising hours, 1 – 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday, no appointment necessary. Our peer advisers, OU students who have studied abroad themselves, are ready to help you through the process.

Concerned about the cost? In general, your financial aid will automatically be applied to a study abroad program. During the application process, we go over precisely what you are expected to pay and where to find scholarships. We distribute over $80,000 annually in scholarships just for study abroad students. There are also other campus and national scholarships available. Short-term programs during summer term and semester breaks (some as short as a week) offer low total costs and flexibility for working students, while some semester programs cost less than OU’s estimated cost of on-campus attendance. Don’t let finances be a concern. Learn about paying for your experience.

Apprehensive about traveling on your own? Go on an OU faculty-led program. Our most popular programs. Eighty percent of OU students go abroad with our amazing faculty and other OU students over the summer and during semester breaks. The itinerary and activities are carefully laid out in advance for you to make the most of your experience.

Are you a seasoned traveler who wants to become fluent in a second language? An exchange for a year or a semester at one of our partner universities could be perfect for you. Don’t know a second language? No problem, there are programs in the United Kingdom, Australia, and other English-speaking countries. We also offer plenty of programs where English is the language of instruction, even in countries that primarily speak another language. Our flexible options make study abroad possible for you, whoever you are.

Students who return from study abroad report increased self-confidence, higher GPAs and graduation rates, and higher career satisfaction even years after graduation compared to their peers who did not study abroad. Watch videos and read inspiring testimonials on our Study Abroad Stories page.

COVID-19 Update
Most of the programs we offer are once again in operation and preparing to welcome students in winter, summer, or fall of 2022. We evaluate each program and each location on a case-by-case basis to ensure that students will be able to have a safe, healthy, and fulfilling study abroad experience. Whichever program you choose, it is important to follow the directions of your program leader and all local laws and regulations regarding social distancing, mask usage, permissible activities, local travel, etc. All students studying abroad, just like students studying on our campus, are subject to OU’s vaccine mandate. COVID-19 Campus Information.

Transcript

MACKENZIE BARANSKI: Hello, so my name is Mackenzie Baranski and I am a study abroad student advisor at the Office of International Education at Oakland University. I am currently in my junior year and I am a psych major and in the summer of 2019 in London, England for about six weeks through USAC.

ANNA LUONGO: Hi, my name is Anna Luongo and I’m a study abroad student advisor at the Office of International Education. I’m a senior at Oakland University, majoring in psychology with a minor in Italian Language and I studied abroad in the summer in Triste, Italy in the summer of 2018.

MACKENZIE: Oakland University offers many study abroad programs that allows you to get OU credit and OU grades that count for graduation. Throughout this presentation we will discuss where you can go abroad and how to start planning.

ANNA: So who can study abroad? Typically, it’s any OU student with a 2.5 GPA, although this varies on the program. Some might require higher GPA, some might require lower GPA. Some other programs also might require you to take a semester of a foreign language before you study abroad, it just depends on what program you are looking at and what location you are looking at.

MACKENZIE: You do not need to speak another language to study abroad. We have a lot of programs that offer English as the language of instruction as well as programs available in English speaking countries, such as England, New Zealand, Australia and Scotland. Some programs may make you take a one credit language course, just so you can feel more comfortable with the language you will hear abroad.

ANNA: We offer programs on every continent except for Antarctica. We also offer study away programs through NSE.So this could let you go study somewhere else in the US, such as California, New York, Texas and so on. You can also go somewhere in Canada, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands or Guam to study away.

MACKENZIE: When you’re on our website it will take you to “Horizons” our site where you can make an account with us. When you’re at the top, you can click “Search Programs” and it will bring up all the programs we offer. There are also multiple filters that can help you filter a destination that you want to go to or a field of study you want to look into as well.

ANNA: We also offer OU’s study abroad program. So these are faculty-led programs and you will be living and studying abroad with other OU students. I did this when I went to Triste, Italy and I studied abroad with OU students. I had a professor leading my program and it was a really great way to become closer with OU students and I actually met my best friends while I studied abroad through the OU Programs.

These are our affiliated programs. JCMU stands for the Japan Center for Michigan Universities. Through JCMU, you and other students from other Michigan Universities, such as MSU, will travel to Japan to learn Japanese language, culture and so on. We recommend GEO for learning second language.

GEO often promotes staying in home-stay’s while abroad and taking classes in the language you are learning while abroad too.

CIEE offers language classes as well, but also offers classes that you can take for your major. USAC is similar to CIEE in this way and through CIEE and USAC you would be traveling abroad with other students from the US.

ANNA: I;m going to be showing you how to search programs on the international education website. So first we are going to do is click ‘Apply Now’, move this over, and then you will be led to a page that has you put in your student log-in, all that information that I will be covering in a further slide.

So what you can do, before starting your account or anything like that, is you can search programs over here. Under this ‘Search Programs’ option, you can put in different filters. So, let’s say we want to filter by destination, which is a pretty popular thing that students like to do. So, let’s say I want to go to Australia, so I can apply this filter and the website will bring up a list of providers and different destinations in Australia that I can do it.

So lets say I want to try the first one, ‘CIEE January in Sydney.’ I want to see what this is about. So I’ll get a picture, I’ll get a little map to see where Sydney is in Australia and it’ll just show me the different terms that this program is available.

I can then go to the actual CIEE website and see more about this program. I can see the application deadline, I can see the dates of the program as well. I can also see the GPA required.

You can obviously click down here as well to see academics. There will be a little course list you guys can look at and you can just read through and see what else you’d might want to see about this program before deciding if this is right for you.

And that’s how you go about looking into programs on the new Oakland International Education website.

MACKENZIE: How to access your study abroad account. So every OU student has a study abroad account. So what you’re going to do is open your browser to the OU International Education website. Then you are going to click the ‘Apply Now’ button on the right-hand side of the IE website. You will then log-in with your OU email and password. Be sure to click the ‘Current Oakland Student Please Login HERE’ button that I have circled in red with the big arrow pointing to on the slide. Then you are going to fill out the rest of your account information and after that you are free to browse study abroad programs.

Paying for your experience. So all OU tuition scholarships apply, as well as grants and loans. We offer study abroad scholarships, available on the IE website and there are also departmental scholarships available as well as scholarships from our providers such as JCMU, CIEE, USAC and GEO.

If you’d like to learn more, please email ie@oakland.edu to schedule a virtual advising appointment. You can meet with me or Anna over Google Meet to discuss your study abroad plans. Our current walk-in hours are 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. Also please know that it’s never too early, or too late, to study abroad. Once Freshman establish a GPA, they are eligible to study abroad the summer of their freshman year.