Jonathon Baluzy called his semester spent in Hong Kong the best time in his life. Now he said he loves to talk about it with anyone.

Baluzy said he would post his thoughts on a new Web site devoted to helping students find study abroad programs, rateyourstudyabroad.com

‘I would definitely put my thoughts up there,’ he said. ‘Like where to find a cheeseburger in all of Asia. That’s the kind of information people need as well.’

Students have long used peer reviews online to help them pick classes and professors. Rateyourstudyabroad.com allows students to post on the Web site about their study abroad experiences.

‘I realized that there was no way on the Internet to know what’s going on,’ said John van Wagenberg, one of the site’s creators.

The Web site, which receives thousands of hits each week, organizes programs by country and school. It lists one Syracuse University abroad program: Globalization and Its Critics, an international relations and international business program.

Almost 2,000 students take part in programs offered by SU Abroad and 45 percent of those aren’t SU students, according to SU Abroad statistics.

Van Wagenberg, who recently graduated from Davidson College in Charlotte, N.C., studied German and business economics at the University of Würzburg in Germany as an undergraduate.

He said he found the opportunity disappointing, with a poorly run staff and strict rules about what students could do. But the program also was quite costly, and van Wagenberg returned to the United States frustrated and determined to help future students from committing a similar mistake.

Rachel Cohen, an SU freshman inclusive elementary and special education major, already knows she wants to go overseas. She said she hopes to study in London, the center that features classes for her major, and that she would look at rateyourstudyabroad.com.

‘I think it would be very nice to see a student perspective,’ Cohen said.

Amy Sloane-Garris, director of recruitment and outreach at SU Abroad, said she’s optimistic about the Web site.

‘I think it’s really powerful for students to receive the information in a way they want,’ Sloane-Garris said. ‘So much of study abroad is peer-to-peer and word of mouth.’

Drew Sullivan, a senior economics major currently studying in Madrid, Spain, recently started classes and said he already enjoys his experiences in Europe. In a pre-semester trip, Sullivan travelled to cities across the continent and had a private dinner at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

He said plans on sharing his experiences with anybody who will listen to him when he returns home, and that he would post his thoughts on the new Web site.

‘I will probably have a lot to say by the time we get to May,’ Sullivan said in an e-mail. ‘So I could see myself going on there and sharing my opinion on the site, solely so that I have someone to tell my story to who won’t get bored with me.’

Sullivan said he would have used the Web site had it existed when he was making his decision, just to make sure it was the right choice.

Sloane-Garris, an SU Abroad employee, said she would like to see the Web site hone its appearance, become more user-friendly and keep receiving reviews and comments so one comment doesn’t change a person’s mind by itself.

Improvements will continue for the Web site, van Wagenberg said. In the past, van Wagenberg met with the other creator of the site, who offered him advice on how to help the fledgling Web site grow. He suggested making the posting process easier by not requiring users to create an account.

The first thing that will change on the Web site is the ranking and listing process, van Wagenberg said. Soon, he said, he hopes to divide the countries into individual cities.

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on January 27, 2009 at 12:00 pm