This is a vitally important matter for your time abroad, just as it is while you are in residence at Swarthmore. Re this matter, some important general observations:
First, American students abroad, in the aggregate, just about certainly have been as healthy and as safe as have been American students in America. Often, especially safety will be much less of an issue abroad than it is here. Thus, suppose you had to choose - just on the physical safety criterion - between spending a semester almost anywhere in the world where Swarthmore students have studied during the past five years, or a semester at the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia. That’s a no brainer.
Second, reliable conventional wisdom, re health and safety issues, informs our everyday lives at home. Most of it is second nature to us. Wherever you are going, there will be comparable, reliable conventional wisdom, re health and safety issues, BUT: a) it will be different in many essentials from the conventional wisdom that we employ at home; and, b) it will not be second nature to you. It is vitally important that you learn the conventional wisdom of your foreign study locale, and scrupulously conform to it. Often, this will oblige you to organize, and curtail, your behavior in ways that are new to you. Sometimes, especially the curtailment will be unwelcome to you.
Third, as regards your health and safety while abroad, far and away the most important factor will be the decisions you make about your own behavior. Maturity, responsibility, and prudence on your part are essential. Absent these ingredients, don’t count on your program to be able to neutralize the consequences.
PREDEPARTURE:
A. Visit to Worth Health Center
B. Other Medical Preparations
C. Information About Your Host Country
D. Health Insurance
WHILE OVER THERE
There are a number of important things to attend to before you leave:
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A. VISIT TO WORTH HEALTH CENTER
All students planning study abroad for the next semester should have an appointment with Worth Health Center Nurse Geraldine Cole (gcole1@swarthmore.edu). In e-mailing her to set up an appointment, enter “Travel” on the subject line, and in the text state where you plan to go (foreign study locale, and any other travel destinations you may have in mind), provide your phone number, and list any other health related questions that you may have. Nurse Cole will get you squared away on all health related issues pertaining to your study abroad, including inoculations if you will be needing them. She also can suggest to you the medicines and other nostrums that you would be well advised to carry with you for self treatment, your traveling medicine cabinet, as it were. Don’t put this off until the last minute. Some of you will need series of shots that will require weeks to administer.
It is important that you have complete medical and dental check-ups before you depart. If a health problem is identified, ideally you will be able to take care of it before you depart. If, however, there is a continuing medical condition that will or may require treatment while you are abroad, you really want to know about this beforehand, and make all indicated preparations, which will include: i) Notify your program about your medical condition. You will not thereby jeopardize your acceptance. The program will do everything it can to reconcile your medical condition with successful study abroad; and it is much more likely to succeed in this if it has time to work with. If, as may happen, some of your medical needs simply cannot be met where you are planning to go, it is far better to know this in advance. ii) Arrange to take all pertinent medical records. iii) With your personal physician or any physician in whom you have confidence, outline the arrangements for medication and/or treatment that you will need while abroad, and make satisfactory provision for these arrangements abroad. This may require that you take needed medication with you. If so, notify your program of this; and equip yourself with an explanatory letter from your doctor, to present at customs if need be.
Whether or not you are leaving these shores with a medical condition, ask your doctor to advise you as to the contents of a personal medical chest, which you will take with you. This is so you will be able to self treat while abroad for minor conditions, as you do at home. Probably, wherever you are going, retail outlets where you can purchase this stuff will be nowhere near as conveniently available to you as is the case at Swarthmore. For example, many travellers find it to be a good idea to take with them, e.g., aspirin or some other non-prescription pain reliever, anti diarrhea medicine, band aids, tape, antibiotic ointment, tweezers, non-prescription decongestant.
If you are receiving psychological counseling, it’s a good idea to review your plans for study abroad with your counselor.
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C. INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR HOST COUNTRY
It’s important that you be informed before you go about the health and safety situation in the locale where you plan to study. All of the following will help you with this:
i) Normally, your program will provide you with information about health and safety conditions in its locale, and always it will be prepared to respond to your questions about this. Please remember: many, if not all, of your program staff are very knowledgeable about this. Heed their advice and guidance, and never hesitate to seek it, before you go and when you are there.
ii) The U.S. State Department publishes consular information sheets for every country in the world, which sheets contain a wealth of useful practical information for travelers, including especially descriptions of health and safety conditions. These sheets are regularly updated online. You may obtain these information sheets by mail by sending a self addressed and stamped envelope to the Citizens Emergency Center, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Room 4811, NS, U. S. Department of State, Washington, DC, 20520. The same information is available to you by phone at 202 647-5225 (use a touch tone phone), and can be accessed by modem at 202 647-9225. Web Link: http://travel.state.gov/ for U.S. Dept. of State links to U.S. Embassies and Consulates. See Office for Foreign Study web page for related links. For emergency conditions, the State Department publishes advisories which warn travellers to stay away from specific countries or regions.
iii) In the aggregate, Swarthmore faculty members and administrators have lived in and are knowledgeable about most of the countries in which Swarthmore students do foreign study. They will be glad to talk with you about your life in your prospective host country, including especially the organization of everyday life with reference to health and safety considerations. The Office for Foreign Study will be glad to direct you to appropriate faculty members for such conversations. So also will students who have completed programs normally be glad to talk with you about their experiences and feelings in these respects. Often, from such talks you will get valuable, specific suggestions from people who have already dealt with what awaits you. These talks can be especially valuable in helping you to prepare psychologically for the adjustments, in the interests of health and safety, that you will be called upon to make when you get there. Sometimes, these adjustments will be considerable. Thus, if you are going to a third world country, very likely you are going to run into health and personal hygiene parameters that are unknown in the world of middle class Americans; and the sensible and prudent adjustment to this circumstance is going to entail some systematic re-organization of your daily habits. Try to imagine, for example, the impact on your everyday experience of needing, for inescapable health reasons, to plan in an organized way your fluid intake. Some of you will be confronting this exigency.
Please remember: The responsibility for the decision as to whether or not to attend the program is your own. Especially re health and safety considerations, do your best to make sure that this is an informed decision.
Whether at home or abroad, you should always have adequate health insurance. Without adequate health insurance, even routine treatment for many injuries and illnesses can saddle you with major financial burdens far into the future; and, in some cases, without proof of insurance, you may not even get medical care that you seriously need. It is your responsibility to determine what type and level of coverage is adequate for you. Discuss this with your parents, and perhaps also with a physician in whom you have confidence as well as representatives of insurance companies, and familiarize yourself with what is available, and from whom. This will be an important issue for you for the rest of your life. Now is a good time to get on top of it, if you have not done so already.
Specifically for study abroad, please N.B. The following:
i) You should not study abroad without the International Student I.D. Card, which can be obtained in the Office for Foreign Study. This provides you with some basic health insurance. Swarthmore students can purchase Student Accident and Sickness Medical Insurance. Please see Carolyn Evans, Administrative Assistant, Worth Health Center (610-328-8062) for more information on this, and for dates of enrolment. All of you who study abroad under Swarthmore’s Semester/Year Abroad Program will be registered as full time students at Swarthmore while you are with your programs. Make it a point to learn the extent of the coverage provided for you by these two sources.
ii) Many of you are presently covered under parents’ insurance plans. If so, make sure that you understand how the plan works for you. a) Some insurance plans provide coverage only while the insured is in the U.S. b) If you are under a plan which insures you while you are abroad, coverage may work differently abroad than it does in the U.S. For example, you may be able to use your insurance I.D. card like a credit card in the U.S. for needed medical care at doctors offices and/or hospitals, whereas abroad you may be required to pay for treatment and seek reimbursement from your insurance company. If so, make sure you understand clearly what kind(s) of documentation of treatment received your insurance company requires for reimbursement procedures. c) There may be restrictions in coverage while you are abroad which don’t apply while you are in the U.S.
iii) A number of companies specialize in providing health insurance for periods spent abroad. If you wish to explore purchasing insurance just for your time abroad, the Office for Foreign Study can refer you to companies that provide this service.
iv) Some foreign study programs include health insurance in the program fees, and/or offer health insurance at an additional cost. Make sure to check with your program, to learn if either or both of these provisions are available.
A. Learn well the local conventional wisdom, re health and safety, and scrupulously conform to it. Intend to accommodate to whatever adjustments in your daily habits this may entail. Often, especially re safety, more accommodation will be called for from women than from men. Don’t ever hesitate to be in touch with your program staff with any questions or concerns you may have about this, at any time during your period abroad.
B. While you are at Swarthmore, health care is available to you conveniently and immediately, through the Worth Health Center. Almost never is this convenience and immediacy replicated in foreign study situations. As soon as you get there, make it a point to learn specifically what you will need to do to obtain medical care if and when you need it. You won’t feel like doing this research when you are sick.
C. In addition to trips that may be provided by your program, you will probably want to travel on your own while you are over there. This is a part of your life abroad which requires special care because, by virtue of traveling, you will be removing yourself from the everyday situations with which you are becoming familiar. If your program suggests or insists upon travel restrictions, it’s a real good idea for you to accept that there are very good reasons for this, whether or not you understand them. Travel restrictions often include, e.g., i) local travel ok, long distance travel only with permission of the program; ii) mode of conveyance (e.g., trains ok, buses and private cars not ok) iii) no travel after dark; iv) don’t travel alone (maybe especially so if you are of the female persuasion); v) precautions to take when dealing with strangers (which will be virtually everyone you run across while travelling); vi) precautions to take with the possessions you have with you.
D. Social and political disturbances, including violence, can occur anywhere (not so long ago, the IRA set off a bomb across the street from The London School of Economics). If such a condition is on going where you are headed, or if there is known threat of same, we will be in close touch with you about this while you are still here. If local disturbances arise while you are there, please N.B. the following: i) Be in touch with your program staff. Just about certainly, they are repositories of a wealth of information that will be specifically relevant to your safety. ii) Stay at home, or otherwise hunker down. Just about certainly, the people who are perpetrating the Paul Jones don’t have you personally in mind. Don’t do anything to bring yourself to their attention. iii) Do not under any circumstances treat such events as spectator sports, and/or as a recreational part of your liberal arts education. iv) If you can phone an American embassy or consulate, that’s a good idea. Don’t go to the embassy or consulate, though, until you are sure that these places are not targets of the disturbance.
E. Anti Americanism Abroad. By all believable accounts, anti American
sentiment in the world is now more extensive and more intense than it has ever been. What are the implications of
this circumstance for your sojourn abroad?
1. All that we hear - from our returning study abroad students, from other foreign study offices, from our program partners
abroad - strongly suggests that American students abroad who make a good faith effort to show respect for their hosts
by accommodating their behavior to local customs and expectations are welcomed and are responded to as individuals,
not as embodiments of some perceived American national stereotype. You certainly don't have to be secretive about
your citizenship. But neither should you flaunt your American -ness by, e.g., dress or demeanor. In any event,
observing this injunction while you are abroad is good manners. Especially now, in addition, it's likely to be
very useful to you.
2. While you are abroad, you may find yourselves engaged in conversations with locals who express displeasure with American policies. In such an eventuality, whatever your personal views on the issue(s) at hand may be, it's a very good idea to see this as an opportunity to learn more about your conversation partners' views, and to respond accordingly; and not to see this as a pretext for a debate. Especially if you disagree with what you are hearing, try something like, 'thanks for sharing with me your views on this matter, and I'd be grateful to hear more.' of course, your views on the matter under discussion may agree with those of your conversation partner. If so, by all means share this with him or her. In either event, you will be turning a possible confrontation into a congenial encounter, which will enrich your foreign study experience.
F. Safe sex. The consequences of unsafe sex can be catastrophic. This is no more or less so abroad than it is at home. Abroad, though, will be culturally unfamiliar to you, and this can seriously complicate the issue. If there is any possibility that you may be sexually active while abroad, please N.B. the following: I) Use of latex condoms is a sine qua non for safe sex. You can’t use them if you don’t have them, and they may not be available in your study abroad locale. Take some with you. ii) Everything about sex (including purchase and use of latex condoms) is socially negotiated. However fluent you are with the relevant at-home conventions for these negotiations, you’re going to have little or no relevant fluency over there. Please don’t forget this. Because of this circumstance, sexual activity while abroad may very well entail for you medical and psychological vulnerabilities far beyond what you are susceptible to at home. And one further point: Your program may explicitly suggest - even urge - that its participants not be sexually active with natives of the host country. If you receive this message from your program staff, it does not mean that they are a bunch of Puritans, nor that they are ethnocentric or racist. Just about certainly, there are very good reasons in the local culture for the injunction. It will behoove you to pay close attention to the message, and to go out of your way to learn in detail the reasons behind it.
A True Story
At semester end, students attending a foreign study program were out one evening at a local night spot.
A female student was receiving unwelcome and unpleasant attention from a native male patron of the night spot.
A male program student noticed this. The male program student had the linguistic and social skills to
intervene quietly and politely - and humbly, if need be - in the situation, and get the female student
out of the night spot and away from the unpleasantness she was experiencing.
But he did not do this. Rather, he flipped into machomode and confronted the offending male native. Perhaps he was emboldened to do so because the offending native was about half his size. The program student participated willingly - on his account, gladly - in the escalation of the confrontation, which led to a number of program students facing off outside the night spot against the offending native and his associates. Fortunately, the program student was told just in time that his adversaries were serious criminals who intended to do him serious harm, and were capable of this. Showing good sense for the first time in the episode, the program student ran for his life. He was pursued by the criminals, and barely succeeded in eluding them.
The program student nearly lost his life. He irresponsibly endangered other program students, whom he drew into the escalating confrontation. This is real bad. Worse, upon return to his home institution in the states, the program student dined out on this story. He recounted it to anyone who would listen; and in his manner of recounting it he was just so unassailably pleased with himself and his splendid little adventure.
And, stupidly and irresponsibly, the student's home institution newspaper ran an admiring account of the story.
Folks, this attitude - I don't know how to name it - and the behavior it can lead to is, if you embody it, a major threat to your safety and well being, and that of others, whether you are at home or abroad. If you don't embody it, I'm glad for you and congratulations to you on your maturity. If you do embody it*, you have some serious growing up to do, and I hope you do it real quickly.
*Quick check for you: if perchance a story like this is ever related to you, and you find yourself thinking, hey, the protagonist was cool, I envy him his adventure, I wouldn't mind trying some of that on for myself...........then it's serious growing up time for you
.Please understand that many of the major potential threats to your health and safety while abroad - e.g., alcohol or other substance abuse, automobile accidents, unsafe sex, failure to maintain adequate personal hygiene, failure to take indicated precautions re, e.g., food and drinking water, failure to avoid situations known or thought to be dangerous, failure to adopt proper precautions with strangers - are matters over which you normally have just about complete control, if you choose to exercise it. Which you should.
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