Direct Enrollment in a Russian Institution

[Benjamin Rifkin]

Dear SEELANGers:

For those whose students are considering direct enrollment in a Russian
institution:

Direct enrollment can work out just fine and it is almost always less
expensive.  I had a student at my former institution who direct enrolled at
Irkutsk University and had a fabulous experience.

However, some students are not linguistically prepared to manage not only
the classes taken by Russian students or the classes taken by mixed groups
of foreigners (and therefore conducted exclusively in Russian as the only
language in common for the group).  Furthermore, students in direct
enrollment programs lack administrative support that comes in handy in any
kind of emergency.  For instance, when hostages were taken in a Moscow
Theater a few years back, I had an e-mail within hours confirming that all
my students on the ACTR program in Moscow were safe and accounted for.  In
addition, the ACTR Washington, DC office made every effort to contact
parents and convey the information directly to them.  Students in direct
enrollment programs may have different kinds of opportunities for medical
care, when necessary.  In addition, direct enrollment students who live by
themselves or with other Americans may have fewer opportunities to use the
language in their day-to-day interactions than students studying through one
of the established programs, such as ACTR or CIEE, which monitor home stay
options (to make sure that home stay families are engaging their student
guests in conversation) and provide peer tutors and arrange internships.

The direct enroll option is certainly financially attractive and it may work
exceptionally well for highly motivated students who are not easily overcome
by administrative and/or cultural obstacles typical not only of the Russian
higher education system, but of any foreign culture.  When we go abroad to
study, we deliberately place ourselves in a context of reduced comfort with
a reduced social support network.  In my day on study abroad, of course, I
did not have the option of e-mailing my parents or friends or sharing
digital photos with them.  Our students can remain tethered electronically
and that has both advantages and disadvantages for their linguistic and
cultural growth.  The direct enroll option still allows students the social
support system they can access through the internet, but students who take
this option who are not assertive about seeking out target-native contacts
may not achieve the very goals they set out to achieve.

It is important for all of us to realize that because study abroad is by its
very nature a discomfiting experience, students may choose to focus on
negative aspects of their experience rather than recognizing that they
should expect inconvenience and discomfort as part of the experience they
have chosen for themselves.  Many times students returning from study abroad
refuse to recognize that they have made any language gains at all, until
they meet up with former classmates (from previous Russian classes) who did
not go abroad and chat with these classmates in Russian.  It is at that
moment they realize that their inconveniences and discomforts may have been
worth something after all, and maybe they can look at the inconveniences and
discomforts as a series of adventures in which they learned some Russian and
maybe a little something about themselves.

For all SEELANGers who recommend study abroad for their students (and I do
hope that¹s all SEELANGers), I highly recommend a book published by a team
at the University of Minnesota:

Maximizing Study Abroad:  Strategies for Language and Culture Learning and
Use / Student Edition
( http://www.carla.umn.edu/maxsa/)

This is an inexpensive book for students that will help them understand the
adventure on which they are embarking and what to do to get the most out of
it before, during, and after the trip.  There are virtually no references to
travel and study in Slavic lands; examples are drawn from students who went
to other destinations, but the lessons are applicable.


With best wishes to all,

Ben Rifkin

-- 
Benjamin Rifkin
Vice Dean for Undergraduate Affairs and Professor of Russian
College of Liberal Arts, Temple University
1206 Anderson Hall, 1114 W. Berks St.
Philadelphia, PA 19122 USA
Voice: (215) 204-1816; Fax: (215) 204-3731
http://www.temple.edu/fgis/rifkin


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