For many, college is about learning, but also gaining new experiences. For students at Oregon State University, studying abroad through OSU Global Opportunities can be a path to those experiences.
“I really feel like it’s made my college experience, and it’s made it feel more complete,” fourth-year apparel design student Mallory Saul said over Zoom. Saul studied abroad at London College of Fashion during the fall 2025 term.
Saul was just one of approximately 150 students abroad in the term. For the 2024-2025 school year, OSU GO sent about 700 students internationally.
OSU GO is made up of three different programs: faculty lead, international internships and traditional study abroad, which is comprised of OSU GO and the international exchange program IE3.
IE3 programs are available to students from colleges all across Oregon and other states, while OSU GO is only available to OSU students.
To begin their abroad process, students are encouraged to visit the OSU GO website, meet with peer advisers and with their academic adviser.
“For some (students), the location is their top priority, and so they’re trying to find program subject matter that matches that,” OSU GO Marketing & Outreach and Program Coordinator Emily Rech said.
It is advised for students to get started on the application at least two terms ahead of when they want to go.
“If you’re trying to go this upcoming fall, those applications are starting to be due February, March,” Rech said. “So it’s definitely something you want to start thinking about, way ahead of time.”
One thing special to OSU GO is that they allow students to go abroad more than once.
“We see a lot of students, maybe (at the) end of freshman year, sophomore year, do a study abroad during the summer or a faculty-led (one),” Rech said. “And then as a junior, a senior, they do an international internship. And so those are really exciting for students to kind of see how those different things work.”
Internships are typically one quarter-length term and allow students to gain credits in exchange for international work experience.
Faculty led experiences are typically held during one of the term breaks (less commonly over an entire term). They are held by OSU faculty who have something specific they want to explore and teach internationally.
“You get to know your cohort really well. They’re all OSU students, and that’s a really great way to kind of make friends and also network really well with those professors who are running the programs,” Rech said.
For the traditional study abroad programs, a student’s financial aid will transfer one quarter for every semester. So if a student wanted to go for one semester that was longer than OSU’s quarters, they would still only receive one quarter’s worth of aid.
Coordinators at OSU GO are trying to develop new programs that mitigate that issue.
“We do tell students if financial considerations are something, fall (term) might be the best time for you to go at this point,” Rech said. “We are working with one of our program providers, (Institute For Study Abroad), (who) is creating quarter-length programs for OSU students specifically.”
Another thing a student should think about before going abroad is credit transfer. They are encouraged to pick out their classes at their international institution, get the syllabi and send them over to the Office of the Registrar, who will then decide where the classes fit in with what is offered at OSU.
Studying abroad can not only be a transformative experience for students, but according to Rech, a study done by the Forum of Education Abroad showed that students who go abroad earn around $4,000 more as their starting wage compared to students that didn’t go abroad.
“The benefits of studying abroad is more than just a fun trip somewhere,” Rech said. “Another one of those is you really understanding your independence as a person… And it really gives a lot of students confidence in going about the rest of their lives.”
For those looking for more information from OSU GO, they can be reached at the email [email protected].
