Study Abroad or an Urban Semester

Human Biology, Health & Society (HBHS)
Nutrition, Food & Agriculture (NFA)
Nutritional Sciences (NS)

Study Abroad and the Urban Semester Program are exciting opportunities. Students who have taken advantage of these special programs report that they have wonderful experiences in many different ways. These students have returned to campus with new understandings about themselves, their career goals, the global environment, and the social, cultural, economic, and political forces affecting people's lives in the real world.

Student in our majors have studied in Italy, Australia, England, Israel, Spain, and the Semester at Sea. Through the Urban Semester Program students have learned about multicultural issues in New York City and gained experience in geriatric long term care facilities, surgical intensive care units, pediatric medical practice, and community nutrition programs.

NS, NFA and HBHS majors usually use these semesters off-campus to supplement their academic experiences. Most often the semester is devoted to studying in elective areas or gaining field experience related to their career goals. In general, it is very difficult for students to complete required courses in chemistry, biology or nutrition when they are off-campus. Students do, however, complete courses for college distribution requirements.

Early Planning

Most NS, NFA and HBHS majors have interests and career goals that involve complex sets of sequenced courses, and some students have multiple goals.

Fitting in a semester off-campus requires early planning so you can develop a blueprint for completing your courses in the right order and on time. To fit everything in, you may need to double up on some courses earlier than other students, or you may take a course(s) in the summer.

If you wish to spend a semester off-campus, start the planning process as early as you can -- no later than the fall of your sophomore year. Meet with your faculty adviser to discuss your academic goals and get informed about the programs in which you want to participate.

Junior year is usually the time that NS, NFA, and HBHS majors spend off campus. However, this is also the year in which biochemistry is taken by most/all of our students and NS 331, Physiological and Biochemical Bases of Nutrition, is taken by NS and NFA majors. Students can take biochemistry in the spring of the sophomore year or postpone NS 331 until the spring of the senior year.

Our students have different ways in which they arrange their course schedules to accommodate a semester off-campus. Some will double up on required courses, others will take one or more courses in the summer, and some will postpone plans to attend medical school, dietetic internships, or graduate programs. Extracurricular commitments, the need to work during the summer or academic year, and personal situations will also determine how you arrange your term off-campus.

All Students

• The student is responsible for understanding all the graduation requirements for his/her program and all the procedures related to his/her academic and career goals including the procedures for studying abroad or applying to the Urban Semester Program. Cornell abounds in resources to help you, but you will have to pull together information from many sources including your faculty adviser, the Division's Academic Affairs Office (334 and 309 MVR), your college's student services office, the Urban Semester Program and/or the Cornell Abroad Program. Keep asking questions. There are people to speak with, printed materials to study, and many sources of information on the World Wide Web.

• Find out the deadlines for the program to which you wish to apply. The deadlines may be two semesters ahead of the time you wish to enter the program.

• For study abroad, contact both the University office and your college's study abroad adviser:

Cornell Abroad, 474 Uris Hall
Human Ecology Advisor, Paul Fisher, 170 MVR Hall
College of Agriculture & Life Sciences Advisor, Bonnie Shelley, Associate Director for Counseling and Advising and Study Abroad, 140 Roberts Hall

• For Urban Semester:

Career Development Center, 156 MVR Hall, Program Director: Sam Beck

Honors Students

• Students who wish to participate in the Honors Program should note that honors students are normally expected to participate in required seminars and to begin planning their research in the junior year.

• Honors students who plan to study off campus in the junior year must receive special permission to make up required work. Contact Professor Tom Brenna or Professor Carole Bisogni for more information.

Pre-Med Students

• Pre-med students must consider their time line for applying to and attending medical school. Students apply to medical school more than one year before they plan to matriculate. For example, if you wish to attend medical school immediately after graduating from Cornell you begin the application process in the junior year. If you will be off-campus in your junior year, you must plan when you will complete the core pre-med requirements, when you will take the MCAT's, and how you will participate in the Cornell's Health Careers Evaluation Committee's (HCEC) centralized services for obtaining letters of reference.

• Fall term of the junior year is a common time for NS, NFA or HBHS students to spend a term abroad or in The Urban Semester Program.

However, a fall junior term off-campus requires that you have completed the requirements for two terms of organic chemistry and two terms of physics prior to your junior year. Spring term is usually a less desirable time to be off-campus because this is the term in which pre-med students participate in the interviews for the Health Careers Evaluation Committee. Premed students usually must plan to get some real world experience related to health or medicine through volunteer work, employment, internships or field study. The Urban Semester is an excellent opportunity to acquire this experience

Dietetics Students

• Dietetics students must pay particular attention to the sequence for required courses for the dietetics program. Fall term of the junior year is a good time to study off-campus, because you can return in the spring term to take NS 331, Physiological and Biochemical Bases of Nutrition, which is a prerequisite for NS 441, Nutrition and Disease, taken in the fall of the senior year. However, this plan requires that you complete biochemistry in the spring of your sophomore year or in the summer before your junior year. You must also be sure that you have all the prerequisites to complete the required sequences including NS 247, 346, 425, 441, 442, 450, and 488.

• Applications to enter dietetic internship and graduate programs in the summer or fall may be due as early as December of the preceding year. Dietetics students are also strongly advised to acquire experience in nutrition and dietetics through employment, volunteer work, internships, and/or fieldwork. Thus, you will want to consider these expectations as you plan.
  

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Webmaster Gail Canterbury
Updated July 6, 2004