“What is needed is a good, student-friendly study abroad program,” Chopra writes in an e-mail.

Many students also complain that Harvard’s unique exam schedule and tutorial requirements make fitting study abroad into their plan of study nearly impossible.

Another hurdle faced by students wishing to study abroad, one which has been addressed by Summers, is guaranteeing that they will receive credit for work done abroad.

“There’s a balance that needs to be struck between requirements and allowing greater flexibility,” Summers says.

Administrators acknowledge that the great differences in requirements across the concentrations makes this a difficult task.

“Each department has different criteria and needs for their students and their curriculum, so I don’t think we should expect there to be a ‘one size fits all’ solution for the question of study abroad,” Fash says.

Many departments, particularly in the natural sciences, have historically discouraged the use of study abroad to fulfill concentration requirements, explaining that the quality of their courses would be hard to match.

“I think that study abroad would work for our students if appropriate courses were taken at qualified institutions,” Physics Department Chair Gerald Gabrielse says. “Of course, I am proud of the physics education that we provide to our concentrators, and honestly feel that it would be difficult to duplicate the opportunities and teaching quality offered in our department.”

Fash says he understands that some departments would prefer that concentrators engage in summer study, or internships in lieu of term-time study abroad.

Indeed, Harvard is beginning to sponsor a number of study abroad programs for non-term-time study and work experience.

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, for example, is putting together two new summer programs for 2002, one in Italy and the other in Peru, according to Fash.

Making it easier to use study abroad course work to satisfy the Foreign Cultures and Historical Studies B Core requirement might also help open the door to study abroad a little wider, Chopra says.

Currently, no single course taken abroad can substitute directly for a Foreign Cultures course—an entire program of study abroad may do so, but only if the program of study combines a study of a foreign language with courses on literature, history, politics and/or the arts.

Some suggest that the creation of Harvard-sponsored study abroad programs would encourage more students to study abroad.

But administrators like Lewis point out that studying abroad at Harvard-owned institutions might detract from the “abroad” part of “study abroad.”