Starting this year, the First-Year Semester Abroad Program (FYSA) will offer a second program track based in Oxford, England, giving entering Georgia Tech students a chance to study and live at the University of Oxford and continue coursework while traveling throughout continental Europe.
Students will now be able to choose either FYSA@Oxford or FYSA@GTL; the latter track, which launched in 2021, takes advantage of the geographical location of Georgia Tech’s campus in Europe, Georgia Tech-Lorraine (GTL), to explore a landscape of vast geopolitical significance for global cultures. Since FYSA is Georgia Tech’s only study-abroad program just for first-year students, it’s exciting to see the program grow, enabling more students to jumpstart their journey to global citizenship, starting in year one.
Over ninety students will start in FYSA this summer, beginning their academic career with a three-week Global@Home session on the Atlanta campus. This special Summer session helps prepare students for studies overseas while they get to know Atlanta and college life. Following Global@Home, students embark for Oxford or GTL, their home bases for adventures throughout the Fall semester. Program faculty will guide their travels, encouraging intercultural sensitivity and critical thinking, foundational skills for global leadership, collaboration, and cross-cultural competence.
With FYSA@GTL, regular weekend travel during the first half of the semester—curated by the Faculty Director, Professor Vicki Birchfield—grounds students’ learning in experiential knowledge. A four-day visit to Paris and the week-long, Fall Break excursions to major cities such as Brussels, Berlin, and Nice are special highlights during the term. Additional site visits include Trier, Colmar, Nancy, Strasbourg, Reims, Gravelotte, the Maginot Line at Fort Hackenberg, the Struthoff Concentration Camp, Château de Malbrouk, and the Vosges Mountains.
In the FYSA@Oxford program track, led by Faculty Director Professor Carole Moore, students spend the first weeks of Fall semester studying in Oxford, England, living on the campus of the oldest university in the English-speaking world, taking courses led by GT instructors. Fall coursework continues on the road, as students study and travel throughout continental Europe with their professors. The itinerary for FYSA@Oxford includes Paris, Brugge, Dortmund, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Venice, Montecatini, Sorrento, and Rome.
When students return to Atlanta in Spring 2023, they may choose to live in a globally focused Learning Community on campus. FYSA staff and faculty will provide programming to support students’ transition back to Georgia Tech’s main campus, guiding them to complete the first year of college.
Are you curious to learn more about FYSA? Just visit the program webpage, https://firstyearabroad.gatech.edu/, to learn more about academics, excursions and activities, program faculty, costs, student testimonials, and policies, including how to apply for the 2023 cohort. According to FYSA alumni, this program might just change your life: “I have come out of this study abroad experience,” alumnus Sebastian Jakowski explains, “more mature, more well-rounded, and more prepared to take on the world than any regular first semester in the US could have made me.”