Profile of EA
The Office of Education Abroad manages all outbound student mobility for the University to include exchange, affiliated, and faculty-led programs as well as individual student travel for research or other experiential learning opportunities abroad. We serve 650 – 850 students abroad each year.

Description of the project
A common misconception about study abroad, from students, faculty, and administrators, is that the experience can be too expensive for most students. Although true for some students, many more could use existing pathways so that they too can participate in this high impact academic practice.

The Belk College of Business has a robust list of programs abroad available to its students, scholarships for these experiences, and leadership that strongly supports education abroad experiences. However, coordinating EA resources to Belk’s programming is not as efficient as we would like.
Our gig student will help us develop a marketing strategy to tie EA resources, Belk’s opportunities for study abroad, and affiliate partner materials into a comprehensive set of accessible and extensible resources to insure Belk students are able to make informed decisions on study abroad.

Project scope
The project would involve reviewing Belk and EA resources already in place to create a marketing campaign that will better link the two. This individual may also interact with external stakeholders (affiliate providers) to create or brainstorm collaborative marketing materials.

Preferred student demographic and qualifications
The student should be a marketing student already admitted to the college. A student who has already studied abroad would be ideal but that is not necessary.

Hours required for completion
We anticipate this would take between 30 and 40 hours to complete.

Describe how the student will benefit from participation (learning experience)
The student will learn the practical skill of using marketing tools to heighten constituents aware of existing resources while they also learn how to balance the needs of clients and constituents. This is very practical in that marketing is designed to unite prospective users to products and services that exist.

Outline the expected outcomes
We hope for an outline for marketing tools and strategies to reach Belk students that highlight available resources to make study abroad accessible. Ideally, EA would have marketing materials ready to post on social media or promote across campus. EA would implement these materials to highlight existing pathways for study abroad participation and demonstrate realistic costs of study abroad programs as compared to the cost of the student’s UNC Charlotte education