There’s no substitution for real-world experience, and there’s no better way to gain those perspectives than traveling beyond the United States. Whether you want to immerse yourself in another country for an entire semester or complete a single class over a few weeks, the University’s Office of International Programs offers a variety of study abroad programs where you can travel and earn academic credit.
“Study abroad showed me parts and people of life that you literally cannot get without taking a chance,” says Psychology major Ely Adams, who recently received an Erasmus Grant to study at Tilburg University. “It’s important as an American especially to see what the rest of the world has to offer, and my worldview changed so much by spending a semester outside the United States.”
If you want to spend an entire semester abroad, the University maintains a student exchange program with several universities across the world including the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, Tilburg University in the Netherlands and Kadir Has University in Turkey. You can take classes that count towards Roosevelt class credit, and they can live in university housing or select the option to live in an apartment nearby. With weekends off, students can travel across borders and experience new cultures.
Looking for a shorter experience? Roosevelt also offers several faculty-led study abroad trips every academic year. Semester-long courses conclude with the professor accompanying students on a multi-week trip to historic sites or international landmarks that thematically tie into the class content. The most recent faculty-led trip brought students to South Africa, where they grappled with the legacy of Apartheid and the continued push for racial equality in the formally colonized nation. Led by Journalism professor Anne-Marie Cusac and Director of the Mansfield Institute for Social Justice Heather Dalmage, the trip encouraged students to test their reporting skills and interview real South Africans to develop a final multimedia presentation for their Global Race class.
The two-week trip included stops in cosmopolitan Cape Town, an amusement park in Pretoria and KwaZulu-Natal for a safari. Packed into a van that traveled the roads during sunrise and sunset, the students saw a family of elephants, herds of giraffes and lions sunbathing on rocks.
“While that was all enjoyable, the trip was valuable for the more sobering elements of South Africa’s racist past and sometimes present,” says Dalmage. “We ate dinner early on in Cape Town on the street where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu used to live, and it was both sobering and encouraging to be so close to that history.”
“This kind of study abroad opportunity is so vital for students because they can immediately contextualize the abstract things they’re been reading about and discussing,” adds Cusac. “For their final project, students had to create multimedia project that combined video and text while exploring how racial inequity can affect all facets of modern life, and it was great to see students eagerly learn from strangers.”
Upcoming faculty-led trips for the Spring 2026 semester will include “Shakespeare, Collaborators and Competitors” (which will conclude with a visit to the restored Globe Theatre in London) and “History and Memory of World War II in the United States and Europe” (where students will walk through battlegrounds in Germany, France and the Netherlands).
If you’re interested in embarking on your own international adventure, visit Roosevelt’s Study Abroad page to learn about the application process, scholarship opportunities and new international university partnerships.
