Welcome. Bienvenidos. Welkom.

Congratulations!

You’ve decided to study abroad, one of the most exciting, adventurous and educational experiences you may have during your time at Marquette.

The Office of International Education is setting up this blog as a platform — if you so choose — for you to share your experiences with your peers, your professors, your family, students who are thinking about studying abroad and anyone else interested in life overseas.

It’s your choice to blog or not while studying abroad. Blogging isn’t for everyone. Others may find that they’d rather join the discussion by commenting on others’ posts or forwarding links on to friends.

But if you do decide you’d like to share your experiences here, we’d like to help you and others to get the most out of it.

Here’s how it will work: The format will be a group blog, and we’d encourage each individual to write at least one entry during the semester about his or her experience. Posts will be marked with their authors, and if they choose readers can subscribe to RSS feeds or automatic e-mail updates for the entire blog or just individual authors.

Example of a Twitter feed

In addition to blog posts, each student will also be able to update the site in short snippets through a Twitter feed that will appear on the right column of the page. In essence, these are “micro-blogs” of 140 characters or less that can be updated by sending a text message.

So if you see something incredible on the streets of downtown Madrid, you can let people know about it — or even send out a picture — without having to track down an Internet cafe.

Ready to get started? Read on for tips, techniques and guidelines to get the most out of this blog.

What makes a good blog post?

Quality over quantity

Don’t feel like you need to write about every last detail of your trip. That’s exhausting for both you and the reader. Instead, focus on using the blog to reflect on a big idea, event or lesson you learned from an individual experience.

Brevity

It’s generally accepted that 250-600 words is an ideal blog post length. But don’t feel so constrained that you don’t go outside that format. Here are three things to consider about how much you write.

Photos

Why you want photos

To add photos, click on the first button after “Add media” above. Then click on “upload media,” add a caption if you like, and insert it into the post. Viola! That’s worth 1,000 words.

It’s your blog

The freedom of blogging allows you to write in first person and sound like yourself. You may be excited, overwhelmed, exasperated, amazed and in awe of your experience overseas. Sometimes all at once. You want the world to know that — and you can. Here are some additional tips on developing your style

1. Write – write – write. The more you write the more your style and voice will evolve.
2. Imagine the people who will read your blog. Think about individuals vs. a group.
3. Talk to the people who read your blog. Think conversation vs. lecture.
4.Let your personality come through. Include your own ideas and thoughts.
5.Read a couple of your blog posts aloud. Do you sound like you?
6.Enjoy the adventure. If you’re having fun, your passion will come thru.

Build a community

Blogging is more fun when it’s part of a conversation. So let all your friends and family know about the blog, and encourage them to comment. You can also email them all links when you have a new post up. Don’t be shy!

Have fun

That’s it! No, really!

A few words of caution

Ever sent out a 2 a.m. text message that you later regretted big time?

A blog can be like that. Except you’re sending out this message to the whole world. Including potential future employers.

Yes, even if you delete a blog entry, a simple search can still turn up what you wrote later. It goes without saying: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WRITE!

Consider these words of caution:

There is no such thing like “private” on the World Wide Web. Everything is public and monitored by millions of eyes. The fact that you type your posts from the comfort of your home, does not make your work private. Once you hit the “publish” button, anybody can (and will) read it.

Just as important as what you write can be what others are writing about you. Remind your friends that what they say in the comments section does reflect on you and the university. You will also have control to moderate comments and you should exercise judgment over what is appropriate.

Finally, for your own protection, you should never give information that identifies you, such as your full name,  address or phone number.

Welcome to the Global Marquette blog

This section will be set up to temporarily include blogging guidelines that will help students start writing about their experience studying abroad. Look for those by the end of the week.

In the sidebar at the right, you can see an example of a Twitter feed. Every time a student updates their Twitter account — either on the web or by sending a text on their phone — it will automatically be added to this site.

We can set the Twitter feed up in one of two ways. One option is having a single sidebar that identifies each student through their handle before the Tweet (e.g. “MarquetteU.”) The other option is to give each student his or her own Twitter feed sidebar, clearly labeled with his or her name above it.

Questions or suggestions? Send me an email at timothy.cigelske@mu.edu or call me up at 8-4864.

P.S. One final quick note: I selected the address globalmarquette.wordpress.com. For $15 a year, we could change that to www.globalmarquette.com. Or any other address we’d like to change it to.