Last term I lived with my friend, Danny Wiebicke '10. Cat Emil '10 and Paula Sen '10 lived right next door. I took Econ 39, a class for my government major and got my art distrib out of the way. But I wasn't enrolled in the College and I was nowhere near Hanover.
Last winter, I did a transfer credit program in Barcelona through Portland State University -- a state school! -- called Academy of Liberal & Beaux-Arts (ALBA) with 11 other Dartmouth students and others from Portland State, UCLA and Auburn.
Transfer programs dramatically increase the range of available possibilities in terms of D-plans. Dartmouth LSAs and FSPs are located in a wide range of locales, but there are so many additional exciting places to study, including Salamanca, Sidney, Israel and Hawaii, just to name a few.
Associate Registrar Sally Gonzalez works with students to fulfill their individual needs. "Transfer credit of any sort is always an individual situation and how it will apply to each student's academic program is an individual matter as well," she said. "We are here to assist students in discovering the possibilities and working with them to achieve their goals."
I wanted to travel extensively while studying in Europe, and ALBA allowed me to do just that. Sen, my neighbor in Barcelona, also loved the freedom. "I got to travel more than I would have been able to if I had done the LSA," she said. "I had the freedom to make the study abroad experience totally my own."
Tommy D'Antonio '10, was on the Rome LSA. Though he had a great experience, he agreed that the program's infamously busy schedules can be very limiting. "We were required to be at the university for six hours a day, four days a week," he said, "so it was very difficult to travel around cheaply or efficiently."
D'Antonio spoke of another drawback to a packed schedule: "It was difficult for us to branch out and meet new people, especially native Italians. We had so much class time."
Nick Binder '09, who studied this past fall at the University of Limerick, said, "By not going through a department FSP or LSA, I had a lot more freedom to conduct my own schedule and class load."
Transfer credit programs are a great way to avoid clinging to (or being stuck with) other Dartmouth students. "While not having any other Dartmouth students or friends is hard at first because there isn't any safety net," Binder explained. "It really forced me to get out there and experience Ireland in a way that I'm not sure I would have if I had been on an FSP."
The GPA-obsessed environment of Dartmouth is also lifted since transfer credits are always pass-fail. Classes were still my main priority in Barcelona, but the flexibility of my schedule allowed me to spend one weekend in Madrid, another in the south of Spain, one in Amsterdam and 12 days in Italy. I believe that some of my most valuable experiences came from planning my own adventures, seeing new places and truly living on my own.
In Barcelona, we lived in a building that had no wireless internet or laundry machines. At Dartmouth there are no parents (woo!), but ORL is always just a Blitz away. When issues did arise we had a landlord, but as anyone who has spent any time in Barcelona knows, everything in Spain is done maana. The shower curtain was missing for our entire stay.
Planning your D-plan isn't always as easy as those pre-application info sessions make it seem. Applications for LSAs and FSPs are due three terms before the program begins. Busy Dartmouth students cringe when trying to make plans even a week in advance. Many students miss application deadlines in the rush to apply. Others end up applying without assessing all of their options.
"I had planned on studying in Italy since high school," said D'Antonio. "My application for the LSA was due in the spring of freshman year. Had I known more about the LSA, I surely would have looked to see what else was out there."
I applied to ALBA last fall, less then a full term before I left for Barcelona, and my roommate Danny hadn't even considered studying abroad until I told him about ALBA in the Tri Kap basement in October (and texted myself to make sure I remembered that I did). By that point, we were both sure that going to Barcelona the following term, and with ALBA, was exactly what we wanted to do.
Transfer credit programs vary in price, but some are significantly cheaper than Dartmouth programs. While the cost of housing were similar, my $6,575 tuition (plus a $25 fee to Dartmouth) pales in comparison to the $11,655 I would have paid in Dartmouth tuition if I had gone on the Barcelona LSA.
Despite widespread views to the contrary, transferring course credit from abroad can be extremely flexible, although the system of having to get departmental approval for every course you want credit may seem an unnecessary hassle at the time. But as professor Bruce Sacerdote, vice chair of the economics department, explained, "We can give students different credit depending on the need of the individual."
Sacerdote is in charge of approving transfer credits within the department. He says it is possible for two students taking the same course abroad to receive different credit, whether a course is on the verge of one distrib or another, or more likely, if the students want either course credit or non-equivalent credit.
Most of us don't imagine planning our off-terms by Googling "study abroad," and this lack of knowledge can be intimidating. Karen Sen '10 was placed on the LSA in Mexico this past term, instead of her first choice, Barcelona. "When doing transfer credit programs, nothing is planned out for you," she said. "I just wasn't in the mentality to do something I didn't know anything about. I didn't want to have classes for me that wouldn't transfer credit. I really had no idea how incredible some transfer credit programs could be."
Before we even get to campus, we are inundated with information about LSAs and FSPs, from brochures to info sessions about every individual program. However, we seem to hear very little about transfer credit programs. While Off-Campus Program's web site provides the regulations about obtaining transfer credits, it does not list a single program or person to contact, not even Sally Gonzalez. On the other hand, it tells you everything you need to know about the LSAs and FSPs, listing every individual program, its location, and which terms it is offered.
According to Joyce Kennison at the Office of Off-Campus Programs, admissions to certain LSAs and FSPs are highly competitive, and every term students are turned away. However, students are not told anything about the similar opportunities out there through other universities.
The LSA to Barcelona is one of the programs that reject the largest number of applicants. When students are denied admissions to Barcelona, they are sometimes placed on the Mexico LSA without ever being notified that there are other ways to study in their first-choice city.
Pumi Maqubela '10 faced this situation. "Barcelona was the only place I applied, and I was placed to go to Mexico," she said. "No one told me that I had other options to still study in Barcelona. It would have been nice if I had heard about the other options available."
Max Pollack '10, who is currently studying on the LSA in Lyon, agrees that we are not given enough information about our available options. He told me, "I would have loved to know about alternative programs were available to me in France, similar to yours in Spain. I don't think Dartmouth does enough to help students find other programs."
Occasionally students do get lucky. All 12 of us who were on ALBA last term heard about it by word of mouth, before even contacting Sally Gonzalez. It was not until I met with Gonzalez in her office (which is in McNutt, by the way, not the Office of Off-Campus Programs) that I saw the wide range of options and the array of programs that Dartmouth students have done.
Dartmouth fails to present us all our options equally. The administration has no financial incentive to advertise these programs. We should, however, be given the resources to maximize our time here and abroad. So when starting your search, find out what others have done and don't forget to make Sally Gonzalez's office one of your first stops. But don't fret: If you prefer to make plans at the last minute, you can always wait until maana.
Jensen is a writer for The Mirror. The only Spanish he learned on his program was "maana."
