With 75 UD study abroad groups traveling to 35 countries this year, and with students visiting all seven continents thanks to recent programs in Antarctica, new and different study abroad programs might seem hard to come by.

However, faculty members and the Center for International Studies staff use their own creativity, knowledge of the world and input from students to continue designing novel programs and distinctive experiences. An example was a first-of-its-kind program during Winter Session 2007 that took 15 students around the world to study global perspectives on leadership and policy.

“We were incredibly busy, not just with traveling but with doing work at the various locations,” says Audrey Helfman, associate professor of leadership in the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy and faculty director of the program.

“The students did research proposals and literature reviews before we left, so that while we were abroad, they really focused on research—on talking to people and asking them questions about their lives and cultures and issues that affect them. In that way, they learned about the process of gathering data, and they were forced to get out of their own groups and interact with people who live in the countries we were visiting.”

Students conducted their research in two-person teams and, before leaving each country, they met as a group to share their findings.

The group, which spent about six days in each of six countries, left New York on Dec. 29 to mark New Year’s Eve and begin their coursework in Rome. From Italy, the students traveled to Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Thailand and China, before arriving back in New York on Feb. 2. They saw such sights as the pyramids and Great Sphinx, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall and Beijing’s Forbidden City.

Students also made stops at the U.S. Embassy and International Development Research Centre in Cairo, to hear presentations on the shaping of public policy; the Ethiopian National and Ethnographic museums in Addis Ababa; the Kenan Institute Asia in Bangkok, to attend lectures on labor rights, followed by a tour of a local factory; and the Communication University of China.

To learn more about study abroad at the University, visit [http://international.udel.edu].