In the Spirit of NYU Tulsa: Ten Ideal American Study Abroad Programs

Abu Dhabi. Accra. Buenos Aires. Prague. Tulsa.

These are just a few of the places you can study abroad if you attend NYU.

To be fair to NYU here, they’ve been announcing this for months if not more than a year. We only learned about it yesterday because it broke through into our social media consciousness. To continue being fair, they’re not calling it “study abroad,” even if the URL on their “study away” page includes “study-abroad” before it gets to the dot–html at the end. To be still a little fairer…this is a great idea?

I didn’t study abroad in college. Many of my friends did, most often in London. My wife did a study away program like this one, except it was in Washington D.C., and she loved it. My impression is that in some study abroad programs, you’re living with a host family or living with other internationals and really experiencing a culture; and in others, you’ve transplanted your off-campus apartment across the Atlantic and started calling it a flat. Some study abroad programs give 21-year-olds a bigger worldview than others. Much of this has to do with the approach of the specific 21-year-old in question.

If worldview is the goal, though, as it’s often stated to be, why not study abroad in Tulsa if you go to NYU? If you go to NYU, Tulsa is probably more foreign to you than London, Sydney, or even non-English-speaking Paris in a lot of ways. And given how much certain people and other certain people hate one another within this country, maybe some cultural experiences would help?

Ten more places there should be “study abroad” programs within the U.S.:

San Francisco

I love my cousin, but like many cousins, he is willing to be outrageously wrong. The other day he tried telling a friend of mine who moved here from San Francisco that rents in San Francisco are now the same as rents in Austin, because of people moving out of San Francisco. This is not anywhere near true, and it occurred to me as he said it that I don’t think my cousin’s ever been to San Francisco. I don’t think he really knows what San Francisco is. I think he may have gotten his San Francisco takes from Joe Rogan. Get SEC kids to San Francisco.

Jacksonville

Is Jacksonville the most Southern city right now? Or does it at least offer the best Southern cross section? You’ve got country club and country, one of the largest Black populations in the U.S., and more than a dozen Waffle Houses. It’s not exactly a cosmopolitan city, and it’s not a Southern caricature like Mobile and Charleston can be. Just a theory.

Navajo Nation

If you’re an American, you should probably go to Navajo Nation at some point in your life, or you should spend time on another reservation. Navajo Nation’s the biggest one by a lot, and while yes, there’s a ton of poverty, that’s not the whole point of going there. It’s more than poverty. Not sure I can explain it better. Just go there. At least go to Chinle and do a Canyon de Chelly jeep tour.

Honolulu or Anchorage

These are, to our purposes, the same. Hilarious move by the U.S. to make Hawaii and Alaska states.

Also, imagine how mad you’d be at your little sibling if they studied abroad in Honolulu, and how annoyed you’d be by the outdoorsy kid in your high school English class if they studied abroad in Alaska.

Salt Lake City

A lot of folks on both sides of the culture war really hate Mormons, and nobody ever really confronts them on it, and it’s pretty messed up? It’s like once you get at a certain point of interest in what passes for politics, or once you get too far online, you decide that it’s your right to absolutely loathe Latter-day Saints. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense. Go spend some time out there. Stop taking out your insecurities on the Mormon people.

Green Bay

This would be so fun. It’s also basically what happens to Packers draft picks.

Charleston, West Virginia

Getting back to inexplicably hated people for a moment: West Virginians! West Virginia rocks! (You could probably sub other Appalachian places in here too.)

Omaha

While Indianapolis has it beat for culture (because of the NIT Final Four and the Indy 500), Omaha’s a pretty good encapsulation of the Midwest. Make this a summer program so college students get to revel in the College World Series and then experience the blank stare of late July on the prairie.

Kalispell, Montana

This one would just be really cool. Imagine getting to spend a whole semester out by Glacier National Park. College for kids who should do conservation stuff instead of college whose parents made them go to college anyway.

Montreal

Canada is basically America. At least in Montreal you’d get a little European flair.