Franklin University Switzerland is proud to welcome six first-year students from Wheaton College (Massachusetts, USA) to campus this Fall 2023 semester. As recently published in Inside Higher Ed online magazine, these students are here thanks to the WheaGo Global Program, a newly launched initiative in which first-year Wheaton College students get a chance to study at one of four campuses outside the US: Paris, France; Barcelona, Spain; Sydney, Australia; and Lugano, Switzerland. Spearheaded by Wheaton College Dean Gretchen Young (Center for Global Education), this new program allows US-based students to travel at the beginning of their university journey, which leaves more time for internships and work opportunities in the upperclassman years and exposes students to new cultures, traditions, foods, and travel locations. In this inaugural year, the largest group chose Franklin as their destination. Dean Young had the privilege of visiting the Franklin campus earlier this year and reports that its small size and beautiful, natural surroundings were attractive features that boosted her confidence in choosing Franklin as a destination for study abroad students at Wheaton College.
Each week, the Wheaton-Franklin cohort attends an online class with Dean Young called Learning from Intercultural Experiences, in which they share their ethnographic explorations as they investigate their new surroundings. Seemingly mundane weekly tasks such as going to the grocery store and navigating the more limited open hours of Swiss retail shops can be a source of frustration, learning, and adjustment. Interviewing someone from a different culture and engaging in the Swiss landscape through hikes and public transport allows Wheaton students to reflect on the differences of a new country.
Dean Young and six adventurous Wheaton students: Nelly Bolster, Clara Cortright, Mima Germain, Treassy Jasmin, Mieke Buterbaugh, and Sylvia Lamphere, provided some valuable insights into how this new program has gone so far in interviews.
Why did you choose Franklin University Switzerland as your destination when you had other locations (Paris, Barcelona, and Sydney) available?
We liked the offerings at Franklin: the coursework, the housing—a liberal arts-based curriculum similar to that of Wheaton. Lugano's not a big city and not as far away as Australia.
Share a little about you and your study goals at Wheaton College, your home university.
Treassy – I'm from Miami, Florida, majoring in Business and Criminology
Mima – I'm from Boston, majoring in Neuroscience
Sylvia – Seattle, Biology
Clara – Connecticut, International Relations
Nelly – Syracuse, New York, Neuroscience
Mieke – Maine, Design and Environmental Studies
What advantages does Franklin offer compared to the other study abroad choices provided at Wheaton College?
We like the mountains and the location. Lugano's not a huge city, but the transportation to big cities is manageable. Franklin offers more on-campus housing, and the assortment of classes is better than the other locations. We decided we didn't want to go to Barcelona or Sydney alone, so we banded together to have a bigger group.
How has your first semester gone so far at Franklin? Do you have any memories or impressions you would like to share with students considering coming to Lugano in future semesters?
Franklin is a small campus, so it's comfortable and easy to transition from the US to the Lugano campus. There's a lot of support here regarding adjusting from Wheaton to Franklin. The course workload is manageable, so we recommend that future students take advantage of weekend travel opportunities and get off campus as often as possible. If you remain entirely on campus, it takes a lot of work to assimilate into the local culture. Use the Swiss bus system and try out your beginning-level Italian. Visit a local Ticinese grotto for Switalian cuisine and use the FLP (small) train near campus to cross into Italy on Sundays to get groceries. Walking downtown from campus is tiring, but you get used to it and can get in shape fast here. We would characterize the Wheaton-Franklin abroad experience as a meaningful study abroad experience, especially since it is one semester only. It's a partial cultural immersion, not a fully integrative one. In that way, it's an ideal first-year, first-semester adventure for Wheaton students. We love the beauty of the campus, and we have all become very close since we take Dean Young's class together every week. We came to Switzerland knowing we would have a core group with shared goals and a sense of adventure.