Is something not clicking?
By: Ralphael Trottman Padilla
Only one student attended the Study Abroad Info Session despite the opportunity to earn a CLUE Credit, a graduation requirement. The sparse audience at the event demonstrated an ongoing issue at CSI: event promotion.
John Dunleavy, the Study Abroad Advisor at CSI, believes that the program has faced consistent challenges post-pandemic when it comes to promoting what opportunities are available.
“Once the pandemic hit, that’s it, that’s where everything changed, the word of mouth is the biggest way to promote studying abroad now,” said Dunleavy. “We really struggle for visibility on this campus.”
While CSI may be the largest campus in NYC, students still are unaware of opportunities that might interest them. This raises questions regarding the effectiveness of campus program reach.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, about 200 to 300 students were sent abroad annually. It was only when the program resumed back in 2022 that the number of program attendees began to decrease amid a lack of visibility.
Even though the session was open to individuals outside the CSI community, turnout remained low. Most students, whether currently registered or considering enrollment at CSI, are not even aware that studying abroad is possible at the college.
David Colon, who is currently looking to enroll in CSI after finishing up at Kingsborough Community College, looks forward to a future semester at the institution. He has heard a lot about the college with the biggest campus in NYC, but there is still much he is not aware about CSI.
“I knew about the many educational opportunities and programs offered by CSI,” said Colon. “I was actually interested in attending the university, but I didn’t even know they had an abroad program.”
The Study Abroad Program gives students opportunities to study in about 40 cities inside 15 countries worldwide. Details about the event were shared through bulletin boards and posted on the CSI Connect webpage.
Wilfredo Gonzalez, an inactive member of CAB, the student programming board at CSI, finds the way events are promoted is out of touch with the student base. There may be a lot of niche or broad events that interest students, but something is still not connecting.
“CSI events kind of suck when it comes to marketing, the people who work on marketing mainly make good stuff,” said Gonzalez. “It’s just the location of the marketing content is usually on places like bulletin boards that literally only one or two percent of the student body looks at.”
There are multiple factors that can constitute low attendance at campus events, including students not knowing the proper channels, scheduling conflicts, or late promotion. Regardless of the causes, continued gaps in communication could result in more near empty events.
Although the info session took place in building 2A, where students pick up their OMNY cards and pay their tuition fees, the result remained the same. Despite being less than a two-minute walk from the S93 bus stop and a graduation requirement, many students who may have been interested in studying abroad may be too late to sign up or not have the chance to.
The program also has a website and an Instagram account, similar to many other programs on campus. However, the session was not posted on their Instagram page.
“People don’t check the event website,” said Gonzalez. “I forgot the name of it.”
