The recent killing of American student Andrew Pochter in Egypt highlights a challenge for study-abroad and internship programs, particularly in unstable countries.
The number of U.S. college students studying in foreign countries more than tripled in the past two decades to almost 274,000 in the 2010-11 year, according to the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group that tracks study-abroad programs.
Pochter, a rising junior at Kenyon College in Ohio who was a 2010 graduate of the Blue Ridge School near Charlottesville, was killed during clashes between supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. The 21-year-old from Chevy Chase, Md., was in Egypt teaching English to children as a summer intern with Amideast, a U.S. nonprofit that provides education and training in the Mideast and North Africa.
Students today are seeking out locations beyond once-traditional Western Europe. Study and internship programs try to prepare students for all possible situations, advising against attending protests and registering with their local U.S. Embassy, said Allan Goodman, president and CEO of the Institute of International Education.
Middlebury College in Vermont reinstated its Alexandria program last year after suspending courses and evacuating students the year before during protests in Egypt. The college then modified its other study-abroad programs, including retaining an emergency evacuation provider and equipping the school’s 36 sites with satellite phones.
Taji Hutchins, 18, a rising sophomore at Harvard University, is in a summer internship program in Mexico. Harvard representatives explicitly told her not to plan any weekend trips to northern Mexico, close to the U.S. border, as the area is considered too dangerous because of drug war violence, she said.
Since Pochter did not seek credit for his summer internship, he wasn’t required to notify Kenyon that he would be abroad, said Marne Ausec, director of the Center for Global Engagement at the college.
About half of Kenyon’s 1,600 students go off campus during junior year, and in the most recent academic year, 96 percent went overseas, Ausec said. One program was moved to Belize from Honduras because of government unrest. The study-abroad office has dealt with issues such as mugging and robbery; it once evacuated a student from Cameroon.
Alex Djaha, 21, a rising senior at Colgate University, said protests happened almost weekly in Rabat, Morocco, where he studied from January to May.
“I made sure to stay away if I was alone or with other Americans,” said Djaha, who is from Scarsdale, N.Y. “My program explained that it was never a good idea for an American to be in a protest.”
