It's a given now that scientists collaborate with colleagues many time zones away -- not just across the nation, but all across the globe. And now UO science undergraduates can gain real-world international experience that will prepare them for an increasingly globalized future.
Starting in the 2009-10 academic year, the Trans-Atlantic Science Student Exchange Program (TASSEP) will place UO science students in a one-year study abroad program in one of 20 different universities in 11 European countries.
In its first year, the TASSEP program at UO will be open only to chemistry majors, with openings for students in other disciplines in subsequent years.
TASSEP is a consortium of member universities from the European Union, Canada and the United States. Through strong academic advising, TASSEP ensures that students are properly advised about course selection, which helps ease the problems of receiving credit for courses taken abroad -- all while they are gaining invaluable experience overseas.
Study abroad can be especially challenging for science majors because typically they must complete a large number of required courses in their curriculum, with many classes building on each other and often taken in sequence.
One of the advantages, however, is that taking science classes in a foreign language can be much easier than a class in philosophy or sociology because so much of the science vocabulary is the same in all languages.
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