Planning, Organizing, and Conducting a 2-Week Study Abroad Trip for Undergraduate Students: Guidelines for First-Time Faculty

This article provides specific recommendations to help faculty members organize, plan, and conduct a short-term overseas study tour. Specifically, strategies are presented to help with managing student anxiety in the pretrip sessions, acclimating the students to their new environment in the early part of the trip, balancing academic content with cultural activities, selecting types of learning activities, and facilitating a student exchange with a local university. A secondary goal of this article is to discuss common on-the-ground problems that the faculty leader may face in the host country. Strategies are presented to help the faculty leader respond to these problems (or prevent them from occurring in the first place).