MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Every year American colleges and universities send more than 270,000 students to study abroad and more of them are choosing unconventional destinations, which in places like Egypt can entice students to ignore well-meaning warnings from back home and plunge into the political upheaval in the streets.
"I think the temptation is there, to wrap up in a keffiyeh and try to look like any other Egyptian revolutionary, to feel a little exhilaration from a kind of danger you don't get in America," said Wittney Dorn, 20, of Appleton, Wis., who is studying at the American University in Cairo.
Universities have been repeating the importance of striking the right balance between safety and cultural immersion after the Nov. 20 arrest of three American students during the protests near Tahrir Square, the Cairo roundabout that has been the epicenter of the Jan. 25 uprising against ousted President Hosni Mubarak.
Dorn said in an email from Cairo that she's been following the advice she got from both from American University and her home college, St. Olaf in Northfield, to avoid crowds, political demonstrations and Tahrir Square specifically.
"It's not a brilliant idea to go exploring an area where people are being killed, despite how tempting it may be to watch history unfold before one's eyes," Dorn wrote.
A survey earlier this month from the nonprofit Institute of International Education found more than 270,000 U.S. students studied abroad during the 2009-10 school year, up about 4 percent from a year earlier. Most went to western Europe: Britain, Italy, Spain and France. But the survey found increasing numbers in less traditional destinations; Egypt, for example, hosted 1,923 Americans, up 8 percent.
"A lot of students are trying to find places that will help them understand the emerging world," said Peggy Blumenthal, who oversees research at the institute as the senior counselor to the president. They are preparing for careers in public health, the sciences and national security, for example, she said.
Blumenthal said she doubted students who picked more challenging programs were any more likely to ignore security guidelines than others. "I honestly think that it's not just about going abroad to these places for thrill seeking, as much as it's about really wanting to understand," she said.
Many universities and operators of study abroad programs have been trying to prod students out of what can become a comfort zone of huddling with their fellow American students. That push to engage can be broadening in a "safe" country; in a country with a suddenly dicey political situation, it can be hazardous.
"Sometimes you have to take limits to your full immersion for safety's sake," said Eric Lund, director of off-campus studies at St. Olaf College, a liberal arts college about 35 miles south of Minneapolis, where nearly 70 percent of the class of 2011 studied abroad.
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