Students discuss fears, excitement for Study Abroad experience

by Mina Corpuz and Sarah Kirkpatrick

With more than 1,150 Boston University students set to depart for Study Abroad programs in early January, several students expressed excitement for the opportunity to learn in and explore different parts of the world.

In fact, one was so excited for the shot at studying abroad that she only applied for a single program.

“In hindsight, it felt a little reckless [applying to one program], but I knew I just really wanted to go to Israel,” said Katelyn Pilley, a junior in BU’s College of Communication and College of Arts and Sciences, double majoring in advertising and history. She will study at the University of Haifa in Haifa, Israel in the spring. 

“I’m just really excited to experience a bunch of things first hand,” she continued. “I’ve been studying Israel for two years now and I’ve never been there, so I’m excited to have concrete experiences to add to my education. I really feel like my education isn’t complete without it. I’m excited to hear first hand what it’s like to live there and the environment. Also, to explore, listen and try to learn as much possible and just come out with a better view on things because it is such a chaotic environment.”

Mike DeSocio, a junior in COM studying photojournalism and minoring in visual arts in BU’s College of Fine Arts, will participate in a studio arts program in Venice, Italy. He shared a similar passion to Pilley for the educational opportunities the abroad program will provide.

“I look forward to being able to speak the language in a more casual environment,” DeSocio said. Although a lot of my family is Italian, I don’t really speak it to them, so it will be nice to actually start speaking it outside of the classroom. I’m excited to get back into design courses because it’s been about a year and it’s going to be nice to spend a whole semester immersed in that.”

BU offers programs in more than 30 nations; however, some students choose to stay closer to home, for domestic internship programs in Los Angeles or Washington. Julia Metjian, a junior studying journalism in COM, will stay in the United States and participate in the internship program in Washington during the spring semester.

“The original thing that attracted me to the D.C. program was really how concentrated it is, so of course there are many things you can do in the city, but mainly what I was interested in was politics and reporting,” Metjian said. “I thought that that would be a great place to go and explore those two opportunities and to combine them.”

Among some BU students, simply being accepted to the study abroad program is a rite of passage in itself. It's almost become a joke among BU students that once you're accepted to a program, it's required to post the acceptance email on social media: 

Attendance at BU sporting events: Why don't fans come to games, and how is BU Athletics trying to change that?

The Boston University men's hockey team reigns supreme for attendance among all of BU's athletic teams — but Agganis Arena still rarely fills up for home games. Agganis, with a capacity of 6,300 for hockey games, isn't nearly among the largest rinks in college hockey, but BU still only ranks seventh of 12 Hockey East schools in regards to attendance this season.

To begin the 2015-16 season, BU has filled to 72.7 percent capacity with an average of 4,580 fans at every home game. That percentage is down so far from last year's 75.98 percent.

But, as for other sports, the numbers are even smaller.

This season, BU Athletics ended a two-year experiment of hosting in-conference men's basketball games at Agganis, which can hold up to 7,200 fans for basketball. In 2013-14, Agganis filled to just 12.47 percent capacity for basketball games, and that number dropped to 8.32 percent in 2014-15.

In fact, BU men's basketball has reached more than 50 percent capacity just twice over the past three seasons. The 2015-16 season opener drew 1,256 fans to the 1,800-seat Case Gymnasium for a game between BU and Northeastern University. The only other time Case Gym has seen nearly that many people in the past three years was for a game against Harvard on Dec. 7, 2013, which drew 1,233 fans.

"I think especially if we continue to have games in Case, it helps us because it's more intimate, more of your high-energy basketball venue," said Dan Mercurio, director of marketing and strategic planning for BU Athletics. "Agganis is a fantastic facility, but it's huge ... and it's not realistic in the Northeast. You don't even see [Boston College], who's in the ACC, one of the top conferences in the country, drawing big for their men's basketball team right now."

The women's hockey team, despite four consecutive conference titles and six straight NCAA Tournament appearances, hosts small crowds as well. At Walter Brown Arena, which seats 3,806, BU has averaged just 283 fans a game in 11 home contests in 2015. During the 2014-15 season, an average of just 268 BU fans came to games.

So why the discrepancy? It's due partially to the tradition of men's hockey on campus.

"Hockey's always going to be the king," Mercurio said. "But I think a reason for that is tradition. They've been national champions ... whereas a good year for men's basketball would be getting to the NCAA Tournament. I think we're quite a ways away from being a Top 25 team in the country. It's a different caliber program.

"Men's hockey, they're consistently a Top 10-caliber team, and that has to do with the tradition that's been built here since Jack Parker first got here. So we're talking 40, 50 years ago that they became an elite program. ... [men's basketball] will always be playing second fiddle, but that's okay. We need a marquee program."

 

NewsTrack: Interactivity on Slate

I think it would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that interactivity is a focus of Slate, but it does feature some interactive elements. For the most part, Slate's stories feature a basic text/picture format with a few links thrown in, and sometimes some videos. I couldn't think of any examples of interactivity off the top of my head besides the weekly news quiz — which I use to help prepare for our in-class news quiz! — which offers multiple choices and also shows you how you compare to the scores of different Slate writers and other readers. Some of the questions are obscure, but for someone who reads Slate regularly, they shouldn't be too difficult to answer. It's a good way to accumulate all of the news of the week but also to pique readers' interest for stories they might not have seen on the site previously and encourage them to seek out those stories. Upon further digging/searching, Slate has created some interactive and animated features, including this graphic showing a map of the slave trade. It's not particularly interactive in terms of readers actually being able to click and move things, but it adds an interesting element nonetheless. More recently, Slate also annotated one of Herman Melville's texts, and allowed readers to choose which tags and annotations they were most interested in and it filtered those annotations for them. While Melville isn't exactly my cup of tea, I think it's an interesting concept that allows readers to consume the information most interesting to them more quickly. It's something that I think could be used for more longform articles, in terms of highlighting the most important people or concepts in a story. It's basically a more advanced form of command-F, which is pretty cool. I'd definitely like to see it used on more sites. Andrew Kahn creates many interactive graphics for Slate, and they're shown on his author page. It appears as if Slate is making a shift to using as many interactives for its political coverage as possible, including weekly Twitter "power rankings" to see which candidates are receiving the most social media traffic. It's an interesting idea and it's something unique to Slate — it's useful to have that visual and interactive representation of just how popular political candidates are, and to see the most absurd things these people are tweeting.

Boston University students mourn, increase awareness following attacks in Paris

by Sarah Kirkpatrick and Mina Corpuz


After the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed more than 129 and injured more than 300, Boston University students, faculty and administrators showed solidarity for the immediate BU community and all impacted by the tragedy.

BU Today reported that all BU students known to be in Paris are safe, and while evaluation of security is ongoing, there are no plans to end the study abroad program in Paris early.

According to BU Today, the University knows of 15 students in the Paris study abroad program, in addition to four law students and 11 students visiting Paris at the time from other study abroad programs in Europe.

BU President Robert A. Brown released a statement on Saturday regarding the attacks:

“Boston University staff have been hard at work reaching out to, and accounting for, all those members of our community in Paris or likely to have been in Paris ... We are also reaching out to those on our campus who because of personal ties to France may in some way be affected. We are deeply saddened that once again terror has claimed innocent lives and reminded us that hate and violence are abiding realities. Our thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of Paris and France.”

Study Abroad executive director Gareth McFeely sent a letter to BU students in the Paris program and their parents, via BU Today:

“BU staff based both in Paris and in Boston are monitoring the news closely ... We would like to assure you and your student that we have extensive emergency and communication plans in place. We anticipate significant delays and interruptions in local transportation, as well as an increased police and military presence, and searches at certain locations in the coming hours and days.”

Members of the BU community reached out to express their sympathy. BU students held a vigil on Marsh Plaza on Saturday to honor the people affected not only in Paris, but also in recent terrorist attacks in Beirut and Baghdad.

The Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Center at BU held open office hours Monday morning to counsel students, and Marsh Chapel will have counselors and chaplains available for support Monday evening.

Some BU professors will additionally use the attacks as a learning opportunity. The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at BU will host a town hall meeting at 5 p.m. Monday to discuss the attacks.

Video assignment: How to Make the Perfect Turkey Skin

NewsTrack blog: Slate's use of video reporting

As a whole, Slate uses some video reporting, but not as much as it possibly could be. The first example that jumps to mind is the Dear Prudence column, which includes a weekly video of Emily Yoffe answering a particularly interesting or controversial question.

 In terms of the mobile social videos that we discussed in class, I haven't seen too many of them despite liking Slate's Facebook page. They have a few playlists, and one in particular I recently remember seeing is one of the site's editors explaining how to cut a butternut squash. I found this video particularly helpful, mostly because I love butternut squash and always find it a pain to cut. But the advantage to videos like this is that they're consistently helpful for years to come — every fall, squash comes back into style and Slate can roll out that video and get a lot of views on it.

 I know Slate has a lot of other video features, including "Ask a Homo" and "The Shortcut." In general, Slate approaches video more as viral, feature-like and advice-giving content rather than in a news sense. But I would say that speaks to Slate's site and mission as a whole — it's centered less around hard news and more as a magazine, opinion and analysis-type site.

Photo Slideshow: CGSA turns 7

On Oct. 23, Boston University's Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism celebrated its seventh year of operation.