AIU Exchange Partners Present at Spring 2015 Study Abroad Fair

The Spring 2015 AIU Study Abroad Fair took over Student Hall for the afternoon of June 19. Over 133 universities from 41 countries participated by sending materials and promotional goods or by having consultation tables manned by current and returned exchange students.

Hundreds of AIU students visited the Study Abroad Fair to learn more about AIU’s 174 exchange partners and make friends.

AIU students are required to study abroad for a year at one of AIU’s 174 exchange partners in 46 countries. Held twice each year, the Study Abroad Fair gives students a chance to better understand their potential destinations and to narrow down or expand their list, as the case may be. All levels of students, from freshmen to those ready to leave for study abroad in the fall, not to mention nostalgic returnees and even AIU professors and staff, visited the students’ booths and got to learn more about the universities wide network of partners.

The Study Abroad Fair is also a great opportunity for students to make more friends. It was not uncommon to see the same student at a booth for 15 minutes or more as talk progressed from course offerings, to off-campus life, and back to life at AIU. Friendships that start at the Study Abroad Fair transcend cultures and borders and many times carry on overseas, when AIU’s exchange students return home and our outbound students follow them there.

Friendships formed at AIU’s Study Abroad Fairs can literally follow our exchange students back to their home countries, if they make a good enough recruiting pitch!

Thank you again to all the student volunteers who came out to represent their home and host universities, and a special thanks to those students who volunteered to come early and stay late to help us with the set-up and tear down! This fair could not succeed without all of our volunteers.

Thank you to all of our partner universities for sending prochures and promotional goods!