FAQs* ABOUT THE CIE WEB SITE

* Frequently Asked Questions

With thanks to Christina DeMello for inspiration and form.

Our web site generates a lot of e-mail from people all over the world. In an attempt to address some of the questions we get asked most often, we've compiled the answers below. Please browse through these questions and answers before attempting to send an e-mail to us directly.

First, you should know something about our basic philosophy:

That Chinese proverb encapsulates how we approach helping people to find the right international experience that meet their needs and goals. We are here to help make use of the tools to find the right program and/or experience for you. Along the road, you'll learn a lot. (We promise!)

May I call you for more information?

Our mission -- first and foremost -- is to serve the UCI community. That's what the UC Regents pay us to do. If you're a UCI affiliate (student, faculty, staff or alum), we think you'll appreciate our priorities. If you're not, we hope you'll understand and respect them.

• If you're a UCI affiliate, feel free to call our office and we'll be happy to answer your questions and/or make an appointment for your to meet with one of our International Peer Advisors (IPA) or a member of our Professional Staff. IPAs help you learn to use our Resource Library so that you can find the programs you'll need.
• If you belong to a UCI organization or student group and would like to have a presentation by an IPA about the international experiences available in a specific country, geographic area or area of study/major, simply e-mail our office to set one up!
• If you're not a UCI affiliate - please don't call or e-mail us for information on programs. It's not that we're anti-social. We're really quite nice and we've got a reputation as one of the friendliest offices at UCI. What we don't have is a large staff and budget (complaints can be made to the aforementioned UC Regents). Our cheerful Administrative Assistant already has enough to do - and she has paid us big bucks from the small change of her salary to tell you that. :) Besides, why settle for secondhand information from us? Call or contact the programs directly for the real story!

Can you send me more information by e-mail or snail mail?

No. We do not have the staff or budget resources to e-mail or snail mail any information to anyone (not even to UCI affiliates). We maintain this site strictly as a resource for easily finding information on international experiences around the world. We link to every program of which we are aware. More importantly, we are not familiar with the information at each and every site listed. If you are a UCI affiliate or live in the area, we may have information that you can easily find in our CIE Resource Library. If you're not a UCI affiliate, we suggest contacting the programs directly.

So how the heck can I get more information?!?!

UCI students and folks who are in the southern California area are most welcome to visit our CIE Resource Library.

Those not in the area will be happy to know that there are hundreds of helpful and knowledgable Study Abroad advisors at US colleges and university campuses, most of whom are members of NAFSA: Association of International Educators Section on US Students Abroad (SECUSSA). If you're an alum of a US college or university, we encourage you to first contact the Study Abroad office at your alma mater. You might also contact a local college or university Study Abroad office. Many of them allow area residents to have access to some their resources. However, remember that -- just as at UCI -- their first responsibility is to their own communities and you should not expect "full service" if you are not a campus affiliate.

I've heard that all UCI students going abroad on any sort of program have to contact CIE. Is that true?

Yes - and you'll want to because we're the people that have all sorts of answers about going abroad that will help make your international experience more beneficial. So if you find a program abroad, be sure to notify CIE and get all of the information from us (regarding orientations, receiving credit, financial aid, available resources, etc.) you need!

I'm a student at another UC campus. Can you help me?

If you're a student at one of the other UC campuses, you should start by contacting the EAP or other appropriate office on your campus. Each campus differs in its policies and procedures for going abroad on EAP and non-EAP programs, so it's to your advantage to work through your own campus office.

I am (my son/daughter is) interested in studying (working, volunteering, etc.) in country Z. Can you send me (us) information about that country?

We can't send out information, but our site is an excellent starting point. Within our site, consider checking out our main study abroad page with links to major searchable databases, listings of institutions and organizations providing study experiences and programs.

The following pages also contain information on various abroad experiences:

Through these, you should be able to find links to most of the abroad programs now on the Web.

Why isn't program and/or institution X on your site?

Programs and institutions that are not on the Web will not be found on our site, and those that we have not run across or that someone has not informed us about, will not be listed either. Further, if a specific program is already listed on a larger study abroad directory that we link to (such as Studyabroad.com), we will not add a separate listing on our site. Please don't be offended if you find that a certain program, institution or other link is missing. Our site maintained as part of the workload of one busy staff member who has lots of other things she's supposed to be doing, in addition to building web sites.

How does a program and/or institution get added to your site?

If you have a site that you'd like us to link to (which is not already listed on one of the directories to which we already link), simply e-mail us the URL.

What if I am an IOP program provider? Can I meet with UCI students?

At UCI, we welcome contact with and presentations by program representatives! Please come to our annual GO ABROAD! Fair to acquaint UCI students with your program(s). Individual visits from program representatives are also welcome. Please see our Visit Page.

Can you send us the URL for program and/or institution X, which is not listed on your site?

If we have the URL for a program, institution or link it will be on our site -- or waiting "in the wings" for the next update. Otherwise, we are happy to try to find programs, institutions and relevant links that people would like to see. If you make a suggestion for a link and you do not see it on our site within a couple of weeks, then it may not have a homepage, may not be on the 'net at all, wasn't what meets our parameters for our links, or we could just not find any information about it through our searches. The number of daily requests we receive that fall in these categories are too high for us to reply personally to each one.

Can I get a complete list of the e-mail addresses for the programs and/or institutions listed on your site?

No. We do not maintain a list of contact e-mail addresses for all the programs and institutions listed on our site, nor do we have any intention of doing so. People want e-mail address lists for various reasons, many of them questionable. Many programs, institutions and relevant links do not have one single e-mail address to answer general requests. For example, a site may have an e-mail address for queries relating directly to the webserver and another for admissions information about the program or institution.

Will you add a link to our home page, even though it is not a page that directly applies to your site?

No. We are trying to keep this site as simple as possible since it is a site for information on international experiences. As such there are minimal graphics and most pages are under 25K in size. This makes it easy for anyone to access regardless of the web browser and/or modem they are using.

Why is your web site so boring? Where are the exciting graphics, etc.?

We believe that providing solid information is more important than flashy presentation -- and we want to provide access to this information to as many people as possible. Some people have hardware/software that doesn't let them access fancy graphics or significantly slows down their ability to download them. Our policy is "substance over style" and therefore, we don't include many images, video or sound on these pages.

Some of your site seems to have restricted access. Is that legal? Why do you do that?

Yes, it is. Because we can and we want to. 'Nuf said. :) Actually, it's not an arbitrary decision. While the vast majority of our site can be helpful to the general public (and we're happy to share!), some of our site needs to be restricted to UCI access only. Don't worry. UCI students aren't getting any "secrets", just information that only applies to them.

Can we mirror this site?

Thanks for asking but, at this point, we're not seeking any mirror sites.

Can we pay you for advertising space on your site?

How much money are we talking about here???? :) Actually we're pretty happy with the current state of this site as is, and don't want to add more commercial hype to the web. UCI has provided us with a great site, superb systems administration and helpful colleagues. We're pretty content. But, hey, our webmaster is always happy to hear about any new and creative ideas.

At UCI, non-EAP experiences abroad are considered part of the International Opportunities Program. Information regarding international opportunities does not constitute an endorsement by UCI or the Center for International Education. UCI and the Center for International Education are not agents for these programs, do not guarantee their quality or that any academic credits earned may be transferred to UCI or any other institution. This listing is provided for your information only.

http://www.cie.uci.edu/faqs.html
© 1997 University of California, Irvine, Center for International Education. All rights reserved.
Last Updated: Friday, 03-Jan-2003 15:34:13 PST