Are you a recent study abroad returnee? Show off your global knowledge at the Study Abroad trivia night!The event will take place on Tuesday, February 16 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at The Mill in Iowa City. Returned UI study abroad participants and interested friends are invited to enjoy an evening of conversation, trivia and (free!) pizza catered by The Mill.

You know that emotion between excitement and terror? Where you are so excited for tomorrow to begin that you can’t sleep but, at the same time you hide under your covers because you just want to stay in bed forever and not have to face tomorrow? That would be the word to describe my emotional state right now. It’s only two days before I leave for Prague and I am now scrambling to pack everything I need.

We're excited to announce our Study Abroad Bloggers for the spring 2016 semester! These nine unique individuals were selected from a competitive pool of writers to tell the story of their destination and represent the voice of University of Iowa students while abroad.

The spring 2016 Bijou Horizons film series begins Tuesday, Feb. 9, with the screening of Theeb, a film from the United Arab Emirates. UI students who attend all five movies will once again be eligible to have their names entered into a drawing to receive a $1,500 study abroad scholarship, plus round-trip airfare. UI International Programs, the home of Study Abroad, provides the scholarship to one student each semester, chosen via drawing from the pool of students who’ve attended each of the screenings. A FilmScene donor also provides round-trip airfare.

Preparing for a trip abroad may have just gotten easier. Students and staff at the University of Iowa requiring visas, passport renewals, or other travel document services will now be offered these services at a discounted rate. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation has signed a contract with CIBT Visa Services to provide passport and visa services to the UI and other Institutional Cooperation institutions — which include other schools in the Big Ten.

Iowa City ranked seventh in the Peace Corps’ 2015 listing of the country’s top volunteer-producing metro areas per capita. This is the first time the Iowa City metro area (defined as Washington and Johnson counties) reached the top 10 on the list of currently-serving Peace Corps volunteers.

Looking to make your study abroad experience a bit more affordable? Apply for the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship! The Gilman scholarship is open to U.S. citizen undergraduate students who are receiving Federal Pell Grant funding to participate in study and intern abroad programs worldwide.

Congratulations to our very own India Winterim study abroad program, recipient of the prestigious 2016 Institute of International Education (IIE) Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education. This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the India Winterim program, with over 1,000 students and faculty participating since its inauguration. Geography professor and India Winterim creator Raj Rajagopal and International Programs' Assistant Provost Doug Lee will accept the award at a ceremony in Davis, California, in March.

Hello everyone! First off, I would like to thank everyone who is reading my blog, and hope you find my posts somewhat entertaining and interesting as I document my times here in Scotland. For my first entry, I’m going to talk about getting around the city of Edinburgh, which has been quite different than my time in Iowa City.

“Tell me about a time when you were faced with a difficult situation and how you resolved it,” an interviewer might ask you. Or perhaps, “Give me an example of a moment when you were thrown out of your comfort zone and how you dealt with it.” These questions can be daunting for even the most qualified job applicant. But the truth is, your interviewer is probably expecting some pretty stereotypical answers: You took a difficult class outside of your major and, by some force of will, ended up getting a decent grade. You took part in a group project that you essentially had to complete on your own because your partners were lazy. Yawn. This isn’t going to help you stand out. But, studies show that a study abroad experience might. Not only will a story about tackling the language barrier during your time in Spain have your interviewer going from apathetic to absorbed – it can also showcase all the skills that make a study abroad experience truly valuable.

If you ask me, “How was Morocco?” or any similar iteration of the question, my scripted response will be something along the lines of, “It was great! I learned a lot, and I loved being there, but I’m glad to be home.” This answer, or whichever variation of it bores me the least, satisfies ninety-eight percent of the frustrating, albeit well-meaning, questioners.

While Abby Restko was in college at the University of Iowa, she embarked on a study abroad experience in Venice, Italy. Restko, who was a majoring in marketing with a minor in art, knew then that she should have a jewelry store that offered Murano glass locally. So she opened Glassando in a small space in the Old Capitol Mall just a week after graduation in 2005.