Instead of orientation seminars and sorority rush events, Florida State University student Callie Broughton spent her freshman year eating paella in Spain and riding camels in Morocco.
Now a junior, Broughton lived in Valencia, Spain, for a year as part of Florida State's then-brand new freshman study-abroad program, an option that is now gaining popularity at several universities across the country.
Florida State allowed students to study abroad in 2005, and schools like the University of New Haven, Syracuse University and the University of Mississippi have all recently either begun encouraging students to study overseas alongside upperclassmen or have created programs specifically tailored to first-year students.
Those schools say they are providing more study-abroad options for their students, but the prevailing sentiment among higher-education officials is that freshman study abroad is simply too much, too soon.
John Duncan, spokesman for studyabroad.com, an informational Web site about studying overseas, said important factors like a student's maturity and academic level make it difficult for first-year students to handle a semester in another country.
Others, like Mary Hunter, executive director of the University of South Carolina's National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, said that because freshmen are adapting to college work and newfound independence, the typical challenges confronting a freshman would be amplified when studying abroad.
Students who have spent a semester in another country agree that freshmen may not be ready to go to school in another country when they've never even lived alone before.
"They're just learning to be independent in a country they know," said College senior Amber Woodward. "Having that independence in another country is just too much, too fast."
At Penn, no freshmen are currently allowed to study abroad, and Geoffrey Gee, the director of study-abroad programs, said Penn has no plans to change that policy.
It's the University's belief, he said, that students should establish a firm academic grounding and build the necessary language skills at Penn first before going abroad.
"Students are not equipped at the freshman level," Gee said.
For those schools that have introduced freshman study abroad, it usually serves more as a recruitment tool than as a resource for academic enrichment.
Dennis Nostrand, vice president of Enrollment Management at the University of New Haven, reported a 10 to 30 percent increase in mail response from high-school students when the program was mentioned in the school's brochure.
Florida State has publicized its program heavily in an attempt to attract out-of-state students, said Louisa Blenman, Florida State's director of student affairs and student services. To that end, the school is allowing out-of-state students to pay in-state tuition for their remaining three years if they study abroad as a freshman.
Broughton said the offer is part of what attracted her to the school and to the program, and despite the concerns, she doesn't regret not having a typical freshman year.
"It's definitely the best decision I've made to go over there," she said.
