Engineering Study Abroad Advocacy Program (Honors Thesis Action Project)

Abstract

The authors of this thesis are both engineering majors at Miami University. Clara is a senior mechanical engineering major and Grace is a senior chemical engineering major. This project has meant a lot to both Clara and Grace, because they both felt as though they missed the opportunity to study abroad during their four years at Miami. Despite being heavily involved in campus organizations and dedicated to their educational studies, both students feel as though there is a small void in their Miami experience. For this reason, Clara and Grace have worked on this project for the past two years, exemplifying passion and dedication to the advocacy of study abroad. Over the past two years, this project has morphed entirely. Originally, the project’s aim was to create a study abroad program specifically for engineering majors. This program would utilize a Miami engineering professor who would go abroad with the group of students for the semester and teach a lower level/foundation level engineering course (such as technical writing, statics, thermodynamics, etc). This way, the courses would be a Miami University course and the credits earned would be identical to those earned at the Oxford campus. In addition, by teaching foundation level engineering courses, a variety of majors could participate. After doing more research on the project, Grace and Clara came to the realization that the creation of a brand new program would be both complex and entirely unnecessary. One of the most complex issues in creating a new program is that there are so many financial considerations in making a new study abroad program. Clara and Grace do not have the financial background or expertise to create a financial aspect of a new program on their own and within the time constraints of their thesis. There are currently programs available for engineering majors, in which they would attend a technical university abroad, and take engineering courses that are basically identical to those taught at Miami University. This realization caused a crucial shift in the project. Rather than creating a brand-new program, Clara and Grace would expose engineering students to the programs already available to them. Not only would these students be aware of the study abroad options they have, but also, the opportunities would be encouraged and promoted.