Hi, good afternoon, my name is Billy Wood.
I'm a senior lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin.
Talking to you today about a study abroad opportunity that we have here at The University
of Texas known as a Maymester. Personally I have been a faculty here, this
is my 30th year. I've taught classes for 30 years; I've been
an administrator for part of that time and been involved with study abroad since
we began it in Engineering in 1996 and now I'm looking forward to participating
as an instructor abroad doing a 2010 Maymester in Vienna, Austria.
The purpose of a Maymester is to give our freshman engineering class an exposure in
doing a study abroad. Maymester is intended to be a four-week session
that takes place as soon as the spring semester is over
and basically runs for four weeks through the month of June.
The course that I'm going to be teaching is ME302 and ME210
which is a course that is taken by mechanical engineering students,
aerospace students and civil engineering students. And it's open to other engineering majors
as their departments will accommodate them.
ME302 and ME210 are required courses of engineering students and that's what we want with the
Maymester, is we want the students to be taking courses
that counts towards their degree.
The time involved on the Maymester is that we need to be in Vienna on May 27
and we will be finished with the course on June the 23rd.
The students will need to arrive by the 27th and check in with us
and then they can leave at their leisure on the 23rd.
So they want to travel around Europe, that's at their discretion.
We won't be coming back en masse. It's just up to every individual as to what
they have to do for the summer.
The cost that we have set for the trip will cover our expenses while we are abroad.
However, they will not cover the transportation to and from Europe
as well as eating expenses while you're over there.
Meals will be on your own.
The activities that we have planned while we're in Vienna,
including the travelling in Vienna, as well as our trip outside of Vienna,
all of those costs are included in the cost that the students pay up front, of the $3,300.
The students that completed the application by the November 1st deadline are being admitted
into the program by the provost's office. And in the spring semester, we will have a
one-hour seminar that meets on Tuesdays at two o'clock here in our building,
and that will be our pre-departure seminar. During that seminar, the students will get
presentations from the study abroad office in terms of insurance while they're abroad,
tips on travel, tips on living, tips on the culture there in Vienna, as well
as learning to deal with the euro.
We also have other activities that we will be doing there.
Our classes will run Monday through Thursday. We'll have lectures in the morning,
we're going to have computer labs in the afternoon, and our classes will run Mondays through Thursday.
We're keeping Fridays open for activities in Vienna, as well as one planned out-of-town
trip. We're going to take the electric train to
Graz to visit Magna Steyr, which is an automobile assembly plant, state-of-the-art,
which I think all the engineering students will enjoy.
We intend to do this trip over the next several years,
so the original cost of $3,300 was for this trip.
Each trip generates its own costs. It could be a little higher next year, it
could be a little bit lower, but nonetheless, we're going to have a wonderful
time studying engineering in Europe and I invite anybody that is looking at our
video to please contact me if you have any questions about the program,
and I will be happy to answer your question. My email address should be on the web page
that you're looking at and come join us in Vienna.
Auf Wiedersehen.