Study Abroad is not Field Study
Study Abroad and Overseas Study are types of educational learning experiences that are based on established international universities and colleges. Students enroll in a university or college in a foreign country and take classes exactly in the same way that they take classes in their home country or nation. Courses can be taught in the foreign language or in English. Students live in an urban area where they have all the same kinds of amenities and if not exactly a parallel life-style that can may have in the USA or home country. Field Study is of course study abroad in a foreign country that might be overseas. But Field Study is typically not conducted in the familiar university setting that is the hallmark of higher education. Field Study sends you into the real-world outside of the "ivory tower" regardless whether that tower is in Paris, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Mexico City, Brasilia, or Buenos Aires. Field Study is real linguistic and cultural immersion.
Field Study is Hands-On, Experiential, On-Site Learning
The diagnostic features of Field Study programs are all based on hands-on, on-site, experiential learning. First, Field Study juices up the "immersion" component to the max. You live in homestays with families that not only speak a different language but that have a significantly different, non-Western culture. You learn to rely on your self and learn what it takes to be self-reliant and independent while at the same time becoming part of cultural community that you would otherwise never experience. Second, you get practical training in how to do field based, face-to-face research. This fieldwork training can be structured with a socially practical, "applied" orientation, as service learning, or as more-or-less traditional kind of scientific research.
OSEA is Field Study
Field Study is not for everyone, but if field study is what you want and need, OSEA is for you. Take this questionnaire to find out if OSEA is what you need to get where you need to be.
Is OSEA right for me?
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