Many students study abroad in their time at Dartmouth, most on Foreign Study Programs or Language Study Abroad programs, but a smaller group takes advantage of exchange programs offered through the College that allows them to explore classes and social life at other institutions.
Unlike Dartmouth FSPs and LSAs, which send students on structured programs often taught by Dartmouth professors, exchange programs give students the freedom to explore different schools on their own.
"There is not a lot of hand-holding in an exchange, you pretty much know or should know what you're doing," said Joyce Kenison, Programs and Exchange Coordinator at the Off-Campus Programs Office.
"You don't know what to appreciate about Dartmouth and don't know what could be different about Dartmouth until you go to another college," said Ashley Satterfield '07, who spent a term with several other Dartmouth students at Spelman College, an all-black female college in Atlanta.
Currently there are approximately 20 "college exchanges" offered to Dartmouth students. The Twelve College Exchange, which accounts for most of the College's exchange opportunities, includes Amherst, Mount Holyoke, National Theater Institute, Bowdoin, Connecticut, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Wheaton, Smith and Willams. Two historically black institutions, Spelman and Morehouse College, also have exchanges with the College.
"At first it was a culture shock, but it provided me with an unique experience and I'm still in contact with the friends I made," Satterfield said.
According to Morgan Cole '07, being on campus for several consecutive terms convinced her to apply to study in Denmark through the sociology department's exchange program. Cole was also attracted to the program because the classes she took overseas would count for her Dartmouth major, she said.
"At the end of my sophomore summer, I had been on campus for a long time and I wanted to study abroad, preferably in an English speaking country," Cole said. "It was a more independent and broad experience for me than an FSP, where people are with the same Dartmouth students and the same Dartmouth professor in a classroom on a daily basis."
Cole said that the less structured curriculum provided her with the opportunity to explore Copenhagen and the surrounding areas.
Kenison estimates that 30 to 40 students study at other universities annually and that the program attended by the most Dartmouth students is the exchange to Keble College at Oxford University. Dartmouth has an agreement with Keble to send them four students each quarter excluding summer term.
Grades in classes taken in any exchange are not factored into a student's cumulative grade point average at Dartmouth, but are recorded on the Dartmouth transcript as either pass or fail.
The four international universities that have exchanges with Dartmouth are Bocconi University in Italy, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, McGill University in Montreal and Keble College in Oxford, England.
Some students have complained that getting the College to approve coursework in exchange programs is overly difficult. Students are required to gain approval by department chairs to transfer any classes as their major classes and then must obtain permission from the Registrar's Office.
"The College hasn't taken any steps to streamline these rigorous steps," said Russell Lane '06, who went to Copenhagen. "Getting classes approved was really difficult and there really is no benefit going through Dartmouth versus going through the process on your own. Thus, it's relatively more difficult than doing an FSP."
Yet, Lane believes the class selection process did not ruin his overall experience.
"I had a wonderful time in Denmark and I think it was one of the greatest terms many of us went through and I would definitely do it again," Lane said.
Ana Catalano '06, who went on two FSPs as well as an exchange program to Keble, said that she chose to go to Keble to get an academic perspective different from those at Dartmouth.
"It was the experience I was looking for, studying British politics at Oxford with incredible professors. It was one of the most amazing things I could have done," Catalano said.
