About 20 students have applied for Duke INtense Global, a new program that will give students the opportunity to split their academic year between Durham and a foreign country.
DIG—which extended its application deadline from Jan. 30 to Feb. 15—offers students a unique opportunity to fuse the traditional Duke classroom experience with civic engagement abroad in either India or Russia.
“In each case, you’re not just doing a study abroad and then coming back,” said Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education. “You’re really having a curricular path that weaves in and out of the globe and connects broadly across your old curriculum.”
Each of the programs is looking to accept five to eight applicants and will engage students with the cultural and linguistic issues surrounding their countries. Program representatives primarily targeted freshmen, although students of different age years applied to DIG.
“The advertising [for DIG] came out later than we had originally planned,” said professor Edna Andrews, who proposed the program. “We wanted to allow students who were interested in applying to have a little more time.”
Nowicki said DIG was looking to attract students who wanted a unique experience that more thoroughly integrates the abroad experience into the undergraduate curriculum.
“Like a good entrepreneurial startup, we’ll see if it’s successful,” Nowicki said. “If it is, great, and if it isn’t, we’ll try the next thing.”
Andrews said DIG adopted a simple publicity strategy, which primarily involved running an advertisement in The Chronicle and emailing students in Duke’s focus programs to encourage them to apply.
Freshman Minshu Deng, who applied to Duke INtense in Russia, said she believes the simple nature of DIG’s marketing strategy served to attract students who are truly interested in the program.
“It’s not very common for a student to get this opportunity to be immersed in language learning,” she said. “It’s quite literally a one-of-a-kind opportunity.”
Students in the Russian program will begin the Fall semester at Duke before studying in Russia for three to four weeks at St. Petersburg University. In the Spring, students will study at Duke, but will return to St. Petersburg with DukeEngage in the summer.
Freshman Yvette Vasquez, who applied to DIG in India, said she was encouraged to apply by Leela Prasad, associate professor of religion and faculty director of the Duke Center for Civic Engagement, who will lead the program. Although she was not planning to study abroad until her junior year, Vasquez said she was eager to take advantage of the new opportunity.
“If this came right to my doorstep, it would be really foolish for me not to apply,” Vasquez said.
Students in DIG’s India program will start the Fall semester and conclude the Spring semester in Durham but will live in Hyderabad, India for sixteen weeks in between. In India, students will study at the University of Hyderabad and the International Institute of Information Technology-Hyderabad. Students will also work with underprivileged children, engage with community media projects in Indian villages and travel throughout the country.
Although many students are unaware of DIG, Nowicki believes it will become popular within the next few years if the pilot program is successful.
“A similar thing happened with DukeEngage,” Nowicki said. “The first year of DukeEngage, everybody was saying, ‘What was that?’ It only takes a couple of years before all of a sudden students know about it and they’re excited about it.”
Andrews is also optimistic about DIG’s potential to revolutionize the abroad experience and provide students with a new outlet.
“We have a good pool of applicants and I’m sorry we wont be able to take them all,” she said. “We’re off to a good start.”
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