Study abroad safety concerns

The risks of studying abroad and how students address them

Glenn McDonell | Contributor | USD Vista

The 2017 “Open Doors Report” published by the Institute of International Education ranks the University of San Diego as second in the nation for undergraduate study abroad participation.  At 80 percent, USD is only 5 percent behind the leading institution, Pepperdine University.

Reports from the Institute for International Education released over the past few years indicated that the number of students studying overseas has more than doubled since 2003.

With an expanding industry come increased safety concerns, and the need for comprehensive travel-risk management plans to deal with such risks.

The study abroad programs which USD students participated in this past fall varied in terms of the threats to their student participants and how they go about managing such risks.

Junior Carol Ibrahim spent last semester studying and living in Madrid. Safety was certainly a heavy concern for her.

“With all the craziness around the world every day, you just never know what people you’re going to be around so you always have to be aware of every situation and just be as safe as possible,” Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim’s program took some measures to address the safety of the students at the USD Madrid Center.

“We had an emergency group chat with everyone in the program where we could mark ourselves as safe if any crisis or catastrophe took place,” Ibrahim said.

As it turns out, a number of security threats presented themselves this past fall in Spain. Shortly before several students planned to visit Barcelona, an attack was carried out on Las Ramblas, a popular tourist boulevard in the city, killing 13 people and injuring at least 130 others.

The USD Madrid Center assessed the potential of continued security threats before approving students’ travel plans, according to Ibrahim.

“The attack rocked our whole group,” she said. “It was a nerve-wracking time for everyone there and I think it led everyone to be even more aware of their surroundings while we were in Barcelona.”

Ibrahim feels that while the risks are always there and it’s important to be careful at all times, she also didn’t let them bother her too much.

“I didn’t let fear stop me from living my life and enjoying my experience abroad,” Ibrahim said. “I just felt like I had to be smart about the situations I was getting myself into.”

Terrorist threats in public places were also a cause for concern for students based out of Aix en Provence in the south of France.

Junior Bix Hirigoyen was one of the students who traveled the region through the use of public trains and stations, which are sometimes vulnerable to extremist attacks.

“We were in close proximity to Marseille, where I know for a fact threats and attacks occurred somewhat regularly,” said Hirigoyen. “Nothing really bad happened to anyone in our community but we were constantly on watch in public places like train stations, where sadly bomb threats have become a normal occurrence.”

French security services foiled as many as 20 plots in 2017, according to an article published in Newsweek earlier this year. The State Department issued an advisory on its website in January warning tourists about worsening threat levels in the nation.

While terrorism has been an ongoing problem in France for several years now, Britain was actually the most at-risk nation in Europe this past year.  According to the 2017 EU Terrorism Report released by Europol, 72 of the 120 attempted attacks in Europe occurred in the U.K.

Junior Connor Murray studied at Queen Mary University in London’s east end and said that USD did more to warn students of potential dangers than his host institution.

“We were in London on the day of a bombing in September and we all got emails from both USD and the local embassy asking us about our whereabouts and whatnot,” said Murray.  “We were hearing about threats and bombings throughout the semester, but Queen Mary didn’t really do much to make sure we were safe, to be honest.”

Junior Lauren de la Cruz, who was one of about 60 USD students who studied at the Anglo-American University in Prague, Czech Republic this past fall, said her program was decently proactive on safety.

“Every week there was a mandatory survey sent out from CEA where students had to provide their weekend travel itineraries and emergency contact information,” de la Cruz said.  “This was used just to keep track of where all the abroad students were in case anything happened.”

While terrorism was a major  concern for the students in Europe this past fall, those on Semester at Sea (SAS) faced another type of danger.

Junior Camille Cohan was a student on the fall voyage and said the program administrators emphasized the threat of Rohypnols, more commonly referred to as “roofies,” in bar and club settings for many of the cities on the itinerary.

“We were warned to be especially aware of our surroundings in new and unfamiliar countries,” Cohan said. “SAS made sure to tell us exactly what to keep an eye out for, from pickpocketing to roofies to scams.”

The SAS Fall 2017 voyage visited 10 ports in Europe, Africa, and Asia for a total of 104 days, with 41 in country and the remainder at sea. Students attended classes during the 61 days en route and traveled within the country while the ship remained docked in each port.

While Semester at Sea provides guided travel for students to enroll in, these tours are not included with the price of the program and some students choose to travel independently from the SAS program.

Junior and SAS participant Alexa Perera said independently planned and funded travel was the more attractive option.

“It was usually more affordable,” Perera said. “You had flexibility to change your plans according to what you ended up wanting to do over time in each country, and as a result could be more open to spontaneity, and you could travel with whoever you want, such as small groups of friends that you would know you would have fun traveling with.”

Due to the fact that the Semester at Sea program could not 100 percent guarantee the safety of students who chose to travel independently, efforts were made to provide students with information and resources to promote their safety in country.

“SAS conducted pre-ports, which were shipwide meetings the night before we ported into each country,” Perera said. “They would provide statistics surrounding various crime rates and gave us a general sense of how safe the country could be. They gave us contact information for getting in contact with the ship in case of emergencies, and also safety facilities we could reach in certain areas of the countries.”

Unfortunately, these and other precautions were not enough to prevent the tragic death of a student who was traveling independently from the SAS program while the ship was docked in Yangon, Myanmar.

Kassandra “Kassie” Braun, a student at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, was exploring the ancient city of Bagan when she fell 20 feet from a temple and sustained fatal head injuries, according to a statement issued by Semester at Sea last November.

Cohan was in the majority of students who did not hear of Braun’s passing until returning to the port city of Yangon before the ship’s departure.

“When we returned to the ship and learned the news, the tragedy sent a shock through every person in our community,” Cohan said. “No one believed it would actually happen to one of us until it did. Everybody was there to support each other, which was amazing to witness but terrible the circumstances that allowed that to happen.”

Braun’s death serves as a reminder that unfortunately not everyone who leaves their home campus to study abroad for a semester returns safely to their friends and family.