The National Student Exchange (NSE) is a program for undergraduate exchange within the United States and Canada. Instead of crossing oceans, NSE students cross state, regional, provincial, and cultural borders.
NSE was established in 1968 with three universities in Alabama, Illinois, and Montana exchanging seven students among their institutions. Administrators on those campuses wanted to help students who would not or could not take advantage of studying abroad by providing them with living and learning opportunities within their own country. Since then NSE has grown beyond their greatest imaginations and has provided life-changing opportunities to more than 90,000 students. The program expanded in the mid-1990s to include Canadian colleges and universities.
Through the National Student Exchange, you can study for up to one calendar year at another location. With nearly 200 colleges and universities from which to choose, you should be able to find a university with just the right combination of courses, facilities, and environment to meet your academic and personal needs and interests.
"Allow yourself to break out of your comfort zone and experience life from a different point of view."
Kate Getting
Humboldt State University
to the University of Alaska Southeast
WHY STUDENTS EXCHANGE
Students participate in NSE in order to:
- experience personal growth
- live in a different geographic area
- become more independent and resourceful
- broaden personal and educational perspectives
- explore and appreciate new cultures
- widen university boundaries
- take courses not offered on their home campus
- learn from different professors
- access courses with different perspectives
- explore new areas of study
- investigate graduate or professional schools
- look for future employment opportunities
- break out of their comfort zones
- acquire life skills
Participating in NSE can be exhilarating, culturally enriching, and one of the most significant experiences of your undergraduate education. The changes seen in student attitudes, understanding of other people in other settings, maturity, self-confidence, and decision-making are similar to the experiences of students who study internationally.
IMPACT OF THE EXCHANGE EXPERIENCE
For participating NSE students, the year on exchange is usually the most significant and enjoyable year in their education. Students return home with a fresh outlook on their education and better able to define academic and career objectives. It is also a year of dramatic personal growth and maturity, particularly for students who are not well-traveled or have lived most of their lives in the region where they are attending college. Students frequently return from exchange with more self-confidence and independence, greater decision-making skills, better able to take risks, and with a better defined view of their future.
It is not unusual for NSE students to consider, after returning to their home environment, participation in a study abroad program as well as graduate school and employment opportunities outside of their home region. Like study abroad, volunteerism, internships and research, NSE is an enhancement of your undergraduate program, demonstrating to graduate schools and future employers that you have gone beyond the expected.
"Being on exchange…forces you to explore, experiment, to change, grow, and develop."
Eric Hansen
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
to the University of Montana
and Oregon State University
FOR MORE INFORMATION
If the National Student Exchange is the kind of opportunity which intrigues you, read more about NSE at this site and contact your campus NSE coordinator to learn about the specific policies, procedures, and application requirements on your own campus.
"I have noticed greater maturity and positive life-changing behaviors from our returning NSE students than from our returning study-abroad students. I think, perhaps, students naturally assume they will be subjected to the unfamiliar in another country, but do not expect the treasure of re-discovery in their own country and culture."
Patrice Swarstad
Former NSE Coordinator
and Study Abroad Advisor
Western Washington University
