Great Countries, Poor Trip Planning Past Review
By A student (Utah Valley University) - abroad from 05/01/2012 to 05/23/2012 with
Utah Valley University: Traveling - Business Marketing
I gained a lot of cultural knowledge and experience and made some great friends. Before the trip, I had not had a great desire to ever visit London, but left absolutely loving it. The museums and historical sites on the trip were amazing. Several students took an art class while there and I feel that we learned a lot from that.
Personal Information
| How much international exposure did you have prior to this program? | 2 weeks - 1 month |
Review Your Program
|
* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
Poor. I did not gain a quality education in marketing. She wanted us to do most of our learning on our own or from the textbook. More geared towards only high fashion/high-end retail, not a broad-based education of marketing. |
|
* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
Poor. Trip was very disorganized and directions were horrible. The spacing of appointments could have also been improved. |
|
* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
Housing was what I expected for Europe. Our hotel in London actually had a bathtub, which was awesome. We were told that we would have internet access in London, but it was absolutely horrible. I had work obligations that I was not able to completely fulfill from not being able to get on the internet. |
| * Food: |
The program advertised as covering breakfasts in London and breakfasts and dinners in Paris. London's breakfast consisted of a basket of bread and watery orange juice. The breakfast in Paris was a croissant and oj (which was good, but not enough to fill you up - we all had to purchase more from the vending machine to feel satisfied). We had been told that the reason dinners were covered in Paris was so that everyone on the trip would be able to eat the delicious French food while they were there, regardless of what extra money they had brought. It ended up only covering dinners in the hotel cafeteria, which although good sometimes, hardly count for a authentic French cuisine experience. |
|
* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
Not at all. We really just stayed to ourselves and did not interact with anyone outside of our appointments. |
|
* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
|
| * Safety: |
I felt relatively safe the entire trip. |
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
No
|
Finances
|
* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
Very expensive. Food was a huge cost - I was under the impression that most of our food was covered, but that was not the case. |
| * Was housing included in your program cost? | Yes |
| * Was food included in your program cost? | No |
| Not including program expenses, about how much money did you spend on food and other expenses each week? | $300.00 |
| Do you have any general money-saving tips for future study abroad participants? | Plan to spend more money on food. The food that was supposedly included was a very small part of the food that we ended up having to buy. |
Language
| * Did your program have a foreign language component? | No |
|
How much did the program encourage you to use the language?
0 = No encouragement, 5 = frequent encouragement to use the language |
|
| How would you rate your language skills at the beginning of the program? | Beginner |
| How would you rate your language skills at the end of the program? | Beginner |
| What was the highest level language course you had completed prior to departure? | Beginner French |
| How many hours per day did you use the language? | 0 |
Other Program Information
|
* Where did you live?
Select all that apply |
|
|
* Who did you live with?
Select all that apply |
|
|
* Who did you take classes with?
Select all that apply |
|
| About how many local friends did you make that you will likely keep in touch with? | 0 |
A Look Back
| * What did you like most about the program? |
|
| * What could be improved? |
|
| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | That all of the appointments were geared towards high fashion and would be with regular employees rather than higher management. If you want to have a fashion-based program that is great, but don't advertise it as a general business marketing trip; it is not fair to have us general business students spend our money and arrive there and realize that none of it is applicable to us. I wish we would have been told more about how the food worked-our dinners that were included in Paris consisted of eating in a cafeteria. Part of the international experience includes eating the local food- I never once went out to dinner in Paris and I deeply regret it. I even asked the director how the food would work in Paris and she said she didn't know. I then went onto the hotel's website and it stated on there exactly how it worked - which showed me that she had done little to no research. |
