Last Tuesday, hundreds of applications from students hoping to study abroad flooded the Office of Overseas Studies. These applicants aspire to be among the 57 percent of Georgetown students who trade Healy Hall and chicken-finger Thursdays for Italian villas and baklava to spend a summer, a semester or a year studying at universities across the globe.

A GLOBAL GETAWAY

Many students complain about the need to “break the Georgetown bubble.” For some, that entails a quick trip to a Smithsonian museum or Eastern Market. For others, it can mean a semester-long trip halfway around the world.

“I think by junior year you get a little claustrophobic on campus,” Arielle Martins (COL ’12), who studied in St. Petersburg, Russia during the spring of 2011, said. “As soon as I decided to [go], I started to regret it immediately. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m finally happy, why am I leaving?’ and then the second I got there, I completely forgot about Georgetown.”

For students who don’t want to miss out on any part of their time on the Hilltop for social or academic reasons, summer programs like the one at Villa le Balze in Fiesole, Italy can be good alternatives.

“Being in the business school, it’s more difficult to study abroad … [because] the options are more limited,” Ellie Conlee (MSB ’12) said. “I knew it would be more difficult to go to the Villa during the year because all the classes offered there are obviously not business classes.”

Students such as current sophomore Alexandra Buck (COL ’14), who applied to study in St. Petersburg, Russia in fall 2012 and at the University College Dublin, Ireland in spring 2013, described the application process for studying abroad as highly time consuming.

“Most of it was fun, like picking classes and such, but some things are stressful — like the essays,” Buck wrote in an email.

DANGERS ABROAD

Last spring, the university evacuated students from two countries after a political uprising in Egypt and a deadly earthquake in Japan.

Hannah Walker’s (COL ’12) spring semester in Japan ended abruptly due to the earthquake.

Because of the disruption, Walker needed to take the remainder of the semester off, load up on summer classes and take a full schedule during her senior year.

Despite the extra work, Walker said she didn’t regret her decision to study abroad for a full year.

“I’m so glad that I made the full-year decision,” Walker said, citing her four months in Japan before the earthquake.

Sam Gerstle (COL ’13), who studied abroad in Nagoya, Japan last spring, stayed in the country to continue his program at Nanzan University in the aftermath of the earthquake.

“I’ve been studying Japanese for a long time and I’m a Japanese major, so I thought it would be the natural next step in my education to study in the actual country,” Gerstle wrote in an email. “I wasn’t really worried about the risk of radiation. Before I could get approval to go to Japan, I had to wait for the State Department to lift its travel warnings … and after they did I figured it would be safe.”

Bonnie Duncan (COL ’13) spent last semester studying in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a city the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs says is known for high rates of theft and violent crime. But Duncan said the experience of studying in such a unique environment outweighed potential risks.

“Going abroad, I really wanted to experience a culture that was foreign to my own in an unconventional place,” Duncan wrote in an email. “I tried to stay clear of Europe and was really drawn to countries that are considered the ‘third world.’ Obviously there is a cost associated with studying in a place like Vietnam … but unless you’re willing to take the risk, you’re going to miss out on a beautiful country and a once [in] a lifetime experience.”

Neyat Daniel (COL ’13), who split her junior year between Ghana and Turkey, made light of the dangerous reputation of places she has visited while abroad. “If anything happens to me [it will be] diabetes from the phenomenal baklava and Turkish delight,” she joked in an email.

A NEW VIEW FROM THE HILLTOP

While more than half of Georgetown students study abroad, the experience isn’t for everyone.

“There wasn’t a program I wanted,” Mike McClain (SFS ’12) said. “I’m paying so much for tuition that most … places I could go [abroad] would either not be worth the money … or would be like vacations.”

Internship deadlines also influence students to stay on campus during junior year.

“I was planning on [studying abroad] coming into Georgetown, but everyone goes abroad their junior year, and I had a job on campus which required me to stay,” Phil Chang (MSB ’12) said. “And [spring semester] was recruiting season. I didn’t want to miss that.”

McClain believes that staying at Georgetown while most of his friends went abroad provided him with a fresh outlook on D.C. “I think I got some of the benefits of studying abroad while everyone was gone,” McClain said. “It really shook up who I spent time with and what I did. … I had lived in D.C. for three years without really living in it so when a lot of my friends cleared out, I got a new perspective.”