March 2001: Vol. 80, No. 2March 2001: Vol. 80, No. 2Exchange program: out-of-state education at in-state prices
Trading places
After being born in New York City, but spending only a few weeks there, Blake Hannon had one clear objective in life:
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 Blake Hannon enjoyed her exchange year in New York so much she is staying to get her degree and pursue an acting career. |
She got her chance, when—after spending her freshman year at UGA—she learned that UGA participates in an exchange program that enables students to spend a year at universities from New York to Hawaii with no change in their tuition.
Founded in 1967, the National Student Exchange program has expanded to 160 colleges with 4,000 students participating every year. NSE was established at UGA in 1977, and, on the average, says director Jenny Best, "40-50 UGA students exchange schools every year—with about the same number of students coming here."
In Hannon's case, because she qualified for the HOPE Scholarship at UGA, the NSE program enabled her to realize her life-long dream of going to school in New York City—and she was to do it tuition-free.
"The HOPE was too tempting to pass up, but I hadn't gotten the experience of going away to college," says Hannon, who grew up in Athens. "So I signed up for Hunter College as my first choice. My second choice was the University of Montana because I love to ski!"
Montana is a popular choice with NSE students, as is UGA.
Holly Picket, a senior from the University of Montana, spent her junior year on exchange at UGA. Like most NSE students, she says the main reason she joined the program was to experience a part of the U.S. she had never seen before.
"I experienced culture shock because I wasn't 'from the South,' although most people were very friendly to me," says Pickett. "I began to be nostalgic for my family and friends—and especially the mountains in Montana. But I'll never forget tailgaters, the roar from Sanford Stadium on game day, or the Southern drawl."
After spending a year at Hunter College in Manhattan, Hannon made so many friends in the entertainment world—where her career hopes lie—that she couldn't get New York out of her system. "After one year here," she says, "I had already established a life that I didn't want to leave." Hannon is now a senior at Marymount Manhattan College, and she plans to live and work in New York.
Which is not to say that everything about NSE tours is always letter-perfect.
Liz Hansen, a junior from UGA, began to miss Georgia almost immediately after arriving at UMass-Amherst on exchange. But it wasn't family and friends she missed. It was her computer. "What stood out the most between UMass and UGA was a lack of technology throughout the school," she says. "Registration was still done over the telephone, campus computers were few and far between, and very few students had their own computer."
For NSE information: 706/542-7774.
Free taxi service also a real business learning experience
WatchDawgs
It's Friday night in Athens and students are out in droves, but not everyone is there to party. A small band of students wearing neon blue shirts works the clubs, handing out phone numbers for free rides home.
"In the first five weekends, we've given just over 1,800 rides," says WatchDawgs director Tim McNary, whose all-volunteer staff currently numbers 270. "A lot of people said we couldn't get UGA students involved in something like this on the weekends, but we've proved them wrong."
Besides offering a safe, free way home when the hour is late and it's hard to find a cab—or a designated driver—WatchDawgs also offers volunteers a real-life business internship. The operation includes the phone card people; traffic controllers, who keep things flowing smoothly at each of the three downtown pick-up points; pilots and navigators, one male and one female, who staff each of the four rental cars and two rental vans; and switchboard operators.
Cab companies have voiced concerns that the free service will hurt their business, and Safe Campuses Now has questioned whether passengers can feel safe riding home with student drivers at the wheel.
McNary says all drivers must take a safety course, and that the cab companies have nothing to worry about:
"We aren't trying to compete, we're trying to make downtown safer. When we get busy late at night, we provide callers with phone numbers for the taxi companies."
The Athens business community is an active supporter. Thrifty and Budget Rent-A-Car have provided vehicles, Cingular Wireless donated cell phones for drivers, River Club donated an apartment that serves as the WatchDawgs' office, and the Leon Farmer Co., a local beer distributor, was so impressed with the WatchDawgs' business plan that they donated $10,000.