Re: “Study Abroad’s Seven Deadly Sins” (The New York Times, April 8 2016)

To the editor:

I opened the article titled The Seven Deadly Sins of Study Abroad with interest, hoping to find helpful tips for students preparing to move abroad. These students are like me—last year I lived and studied in Aix-en-Provence, France and had a wonderful and rich experience. As such, I was disappointed by the article’s misguided “advice” aimed at American students living, or considering living, abroad.

The audience that the author, Peter Coclanis, is addressing is a vague conglomerate of students “who go into a program without much forethought, focus or purpose.” It is unclear exactly what he means by this, or what amount of forethought and focus he deems appropriate in 20 year-olds, but there are more salient details of the article I would like to unpack.

First of all, the author blames students for enrolling in English language courses because they don’t have the language skills to “direct enroll” in courses at local institutions. This this is a structural issue for which students should not be faulted. If this is to change, then language requirements pre-enrollment need to be stricter and more classes need to be offered abroad in order to cater to a wider set of language levels.

The author also criticizes the lifestyle choices of young people studying abroad. He accuses them of drinking too much, as if study abroad students are the only ones who do this, and suggests that students having sexual relationships abroad are consumed only with sex—staying in bed all day every day, only to take a break to “order Domino’s.” This commentary is comically misguided and out of touch. In fact, it is possible to have a sex life, a social life and an academic life all at once—abroad or not. The author also makes a bizarre and upsetting comment about Amanda Knox’s “misadventures” in Italy, as if her case should be a warning to women in sexual relationships abroad.

While the author may have written this article with good intentions, he places excessive blame on students and is so comically out of touch that the article seems like a parody of itself.

As a (recent) study abroad alum, I am calling Professor Coclanis out on his misguided commentary on American students abroad. Yes, they may take classes in English. Yes, they may drink and have sex. But these activities are not sins, and they do not in any way inhibit a successful, rich, and productive study abroad experience.