Study abroad offers students an academic experience that can enhance and complement their Columbia College education and, wherever possible, provide a comparative dimension to their major field of study.

Your primary role in study abroad advising is to help students understand how their international experience intersects with their intellectual pursuits and their aspirations. Your input can help them frame their goals for study abroad as they prepare for living and studying while immersed in a foreign culture.

The study abroad experience fosters a global perspective in students and contributes to their development of an academic focus. Students who pursue avenues of research while abroad build on this foundation in their senior thesis projects, as well as in their research proposals for post-graduate fellowships. This experience is especially significant since many students who succeed in obtaining post-graduate fellowships, such as the Fulbright, the Rhodes, and the Marshall, have studied abroad during their time at Columbia.