University of Glasgow Connect

Welcoming a new generation of exchange students

Colette McGowan, Study Abroad Partnerships Manager at the University of Glasgow, talks about our new partnership with Northeastern University (NU) and our excitement at welcoming NU first-year students to spend their inaugural semester of university life here in Glasgow.

Welcoming visiting students from all over the world for a semester of study is nothing new for the University for Glasgow. We’ve welcomed more than 15,000 exchange and study abroad students across the last 24 years. However, this year we were delighted to forge a partnership with Northeastern University in the United States, which led us in a new direction – welcoming NU students to Glasgow for their first ever semester at university.

The N.U.in programme

Northeastern University is a private research university based in Boston. They developed a semester abroad programme for Freshman students about 10 years ago and it has grown in popularity and size since then. They now send students to nine locations in eight countries around the world.

How the story began

Discussions with Northeastern began in late 2021 and we submitted a bid to run a programme for them in early 2022. A key strength of Northeastern’s programme is that students can fulfil requirements in their major and minor subject areas while they are abroad.

Once we knew which subjects Northeastern students needed to take, we set up meetings between Glasgow and Northeastern academic staff, to make sure that courses could be matched as seamlessly as possible. Colleagues in chemistry and life sciences were integral to the success of the discussions from an early stage. It is thanks to their flexibility and willingness to adapt existing courses that a suitable programme of study was created.

Upon identifying the Biology and Chemistry courses, focus quickly switched to other subject areas and the requirement from Northeastern that the entire cohort enrolled on a Scottish cultural class. Fortunately, we were able to offer places on the existing course ‘Introduction to Scottish Culture’ - a course which has been offered to visiting students for many years and is curated by the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies. It is jointly taught by colleagues in Scottish Literature, History, Celtic and Archaeology.

Two more bespoke courses were created for Northeastern students by colleagues in Lifelong Learning, bringing the final list to 21 courses that would be offered to this inaugural first cohort.

Social & welfare provision

As soon as courses were confirmed, our attention turned to social and welfare support.

As part of the Northeastern commitment to the programme, they send a team of staff to accompany the student group. The Northeastern staff members provide the majority of pastoral and welfare support to their students, but also liaise closely with key student support teams at Glasgow. The Glasgow staff leads were identified early on, and meetings took place with student support service staff to confirm responsibilities and contact details.

Applications from students started to roll in around June and, by the end of July, we had the final tally of 126 students. On the 10th September, we met the majority of the students at Glasgow Airport and brought them to the city to begin their studies. They took part in Orientation and Welcome Week activities during that first week.

The students have settled in well, having experienced a welcome ceilidh, a trip to Stirling and another trip to Edinburgh. Further afield, we took them on an overnight trip to Inverness, taking in Glencoe, the Glenfinnan Viaduct and Loch Ness along the way.

The next big event in their calendar will of course be a Thanksgiving celebration at the end of November – having most recently experienced a Scottish Halloween and Guy Fawkes night!