Boston University, in a joint venture with London-based Practicum Europa, will establish new internship opportunities for universities nationwide in a new project called European Study Abroad (EUSA).
“Schools can now hire EUSA to help get their programs started,” said EUSA Director of University Direction Catherine Hanley.
Students from other universities will get to take part in internships that BU already sends its own students to, according to BU Associate Provost Urbain Dewinter. Programs will be offered in countries including Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
“For Boston University, it is an opportunity to work as a long-term provider of internships to strengthen other schools’ programs,” said Dewinter about EUSA, which has been in discussion since early last summer.
EUSA will review study abroad programs that other universities already have and will create specific programs for each university’s individual needs, according to Hanley.
“We will provide whatever the unmet study abroad needs are of U.S. institutions,” Hanley said. “We’ll help if we need to find internships, if we need to find study abroad areas, if a school needs a program manager on site or if they need help with resident placement.”
Villanova University in Philadelphia will soon test EUSA, Dewinter said. Villanova is currently sending students in the summer to the London School of Economics, but they are not provided with internship possibilities like BU students have in London.
“Our joint venture will help with finding these internships,” he said. Many of the internships will be the same as the BU students are participating in.
BU’s participation in EUSA demonstrates the school’s advanced status in study abroad programs compared to other U.S. universities, DeWinter said.
“BU is a trailblazer in study abroad,” Hanley said. “What they offer is unbelievable.”
“From what I’ve heard, the BU study abroad programs are very good and they have a very wide selection of places to choose from,” said College of Arts and Science freshman Dave Greenberg, who hopes to study for a semester in either London or Dublin.
“I think [EUSA] is a great idea,” Greenberg said. “Students at other schools should have the same opportunities to study abroad as us and anything that Boston University can do to help reflects well on the school.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
