Between picking weeds at school and traveling to another country to experience foreign culture, most individuals would swarm the latter option. Yet, while regular MTerm is only two weeks and allows students to still commit to their relationships and sports, Menlo Abroad requires them to spend three full weeks without any connection to people or commitments back home. I fully support the concept behind Menlo Abroad, but to make it more realistic for most students, it should offer two-week options.
A large focus of the trips is taking a step away from home and experiencing a new lifestyle, and they largely succeed in doing so. One of their methods to immerse students in these foreign lives is by banning phone usage, yet in doing so, Menlo also limits student communication with friends and family back home. Spending three full weeks unable to speak to family members contributes to anxiety and homesickness. Personally, it’s one of the reasons I didn’t apply for an abroad trip.
If Menlo offered two-week-long options, then both the abroad and regular MTerm students would be on the same schedule, meaning students abroad would be able to celebrate their summers at the same time as their friends and wouldn’t be missing out on any start-of-summer celebrations.
Additionally, let’s think of our athletes. A large part of the student body plays either spring or club sports, ones that still have competitions over MTerm. Not only is there a large chance they would have a competition over such a long trip, but there are also many who would not be able to skip three weeks’ worth of practices for reasons related both to consistency and play time.
Overall, I’m not sure why such an event needs to be three weeks long. For some students, that much time away from home can be daunting. I’m not saying Menlo has to shorten all of its trips abroad, but I think offering 2-week options would provide appealing alternatives for students who feel timid about staying away that long.
