Letter to Parents

Dear Parent,
Travel study is a life-altering experience for most students. They gain a broader perspective of the world they live in and often make friendships that last a lifetime. But we also understand that the decision to send your son or daughter on a travel study program overseas is a difficult one. Not only are there safety and financial issues to consider, but there are also many programs and different types of experiences to choose from.

All of our programs have two things in common: our study leaders are UC Davis faculty and our courses are regular UC Davis offerings. This means that our programs are solid academic programs and that the credits earned will count toward your student's degree. Most of the classes we offer can be used for credit within particular majors and many of them also carry General Education credit. And by taking a Summer Abroad program, students can complete 40% of the units needed for the Global and International Studies Minor at UCD. Almost a quarter of our faculty have won teaching awards at UC Davis (in the campus population as a whole 5% of the faculty have won such awards). Since safety is one of our primary concerns, our faculty live either with or near the students for the duration of the program and spend a considerable amount of time with the students both inside and outside the classroom.

I hope it's obvious that we take the "study" part of travel study seriously; we are equally serious about the "travel" part. We will offer 41 programs in 29 countries in 2009. So whether your future engineer wants to examine historic constructions in Rome or your historian wants to study the Andean region in Peru, we have a program to meet your student's needs and interests.

We have created this new web page for parents like you who are interested in providing your son or daughter with the opportunity to have a rich cultural and academic program while also having a great—and safe—time overseas. To that end we hope you'll find the links on this page very useful; there's information about specific courses, travel preparation, scholarships, financial aid, cancellation insurance, and our travel and health insurance plans. If you have remaining concerns that you would like me to address specifically, please feel free to contact me either by email (ejschroeder@ucdavis.edu) or by telephone (530 757 8307). I'd be happy to talk to you and answer your questions.

Best wishes,
Eric Schroeder
Director, Summer Abroad