Suds

The minimum drinking age in foreign countries is typically lower (in most of Europe 18, or 16 for beer and wine) or nonexistent (in parts of Africa and Asia), and many drinking establishments have yet to abandon happy hours (often lasting until 10 or 11 p.m.), ladies nights or “open pours” for a set price. So some students spend a good deal of time squandering what should be one of the highlights of their undergraduate careers. Try following a discussion on Dutch art in the golden age or on the origins of the euro in a 9 a.m. seminar with a half-dozen hung-over 19-year-olds. (Classes, especially in proprietary programs, are largely held in the mornings to allow for afternoon tours and museum visits, and on Monday through Thursday so that three-day weekends can be used for travel.)

Sexual Fervidity

From the point of view of some students, no study-abroad program would be complete without an “experiential education” component involving sex with a local, despite the chill effect of the Amanda Knox tragedy in Perugia, Italy. Students in such relationships spend much of their nonscheduled hours otherwise engaged, with intermittent treks to the door to pick up pizzas from Domino’s, which now has locations in more than 75 countries. Follow Plautus’s famous injunction: modus omnibus in rebus.

Shopping

When not drinking or looking for sex, some students spend inordinate amounts of time engaged in this “sin”— and the cheaper and tackier the junk bought, the better. One student in a program I led spent almost all her nonscheduled hours pounding the pavement of Southeast Asia haggling over $2 T-shirts and trinkets. The opportunity costs were high, both in the form of museums and performances missed and deeper, richer relationships foregone. She told me she felt a lot of pressure to return with gifts for family, neighbors and sorority sisters. By no means was she superficial (she is now a doctor). She just never thought much about what she wanted out of studying abroad.

Self-Segregation

This generally occurs in stand-alone proprietary programs open to students from one institution and led by a professor from that school. If designed well — inviting students in the host country to enroll in classes, scheduling home stays — such programs minimize self-segregation. But too often programs consist of 15 to 20 students, subdivided into three or four subgroups of friends, living and learning in splendid isolation behind a kind of de facto cordon sanitaire. When such students do venture beyond the line, they often do so with other study-abroad students in similar programs from similar schools, further insulating themselves from interaction with local residents.

Smartphoning

If I ruled the world, no student abroad would be allowed a smartphone. When students have smartphones with robust calling plans, they might as well stay at State U. Some observers have referred to this as the FOMO syndrome: Fear of missing out on activities back home tethers them to texting with people thousands of miles away rather than engaging with those on the scene. As world ruler I would, for safety’s sake, concede the need for one smartphone, to remain in the possession of the program director. I’d also require students on the flight over to read Sherry Turkle’s new book, “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.”