T&M international trip details: South Africa, January 2023

Details for our trip to South Africa

Interest for the next several T&M international immersion trip continues to build, and we are excited to share a tentative itinerary for the trip. While we don’t know the impact of COVID a few months from now, campus is committed to offering study abroad experiences for our students, if at all feasible. We don’t anticipate any significant COVID-related travel implications, but we will keep you posted this fall as things evolve.

This is long, but stuffed with important details, so please read on if you’re considering international travel with T&M.

Trip itinerary: Our group will depart from Champaign on Friday, December 30, 2022, arriving in Cape Town, South Africa, late on Saturday, December 31. While our arrival will be quite late, we are working to organize a private New Year’s Eve celebration at our hotel for our group that night. Our return flight will leave Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday, January 14 with most everyone reaching their final return destination by the end of the day on Sunday, January 15. While in-country, our trip will loosely follow the proposed agenda outlined below.

Pre-trip coursework: There are three sections available for students to choose from for this course.

• BUS 199 SA – 1 credit hour, includes trip and required pre-work, will meet once or twice during the second 8-week period (3/13-5/3), project to be completed during trip, open to juniors and seniors

Auditing the course: This course is not available to audit. For liability purposes, we cannot take students out of the country unless they are formally enrolled in the appropriate course at the University of Illinois. While this may have been possible in the past, campus has drawn a firm line in the sand on this and it is no longer an option.

Schedule overrides and overloads: If you are denied an approval to get a schedule overload so that you can register for this course, please contact me right away. We have study abroad experts in both of our colleges who can help you navigate the approval process so that you may participate in this experience.

Registering for the course: You can register for the course directly. There should not be a restriction in place, but if you have any trouble registering, please email Sree at slv@illinois.edu.

Study abroad application: In addition to registering for the course, you must also complete a study abroad application, required of all University of Illinois students intending to participate in any international travel experience. The deadline for this application is October 1, 2022. This is a hard deadline with no exceptions. While you may not aapply for this trip after October 1, you may drop it. So if you are on the fence about the trip, I would encourage you to complete the application so that you have the option. Complete the application online.

Trip fee: The final cost of the trip will be based on how many students participate, but the T&M program has committed to subsidizing the trip costs if it exceeds $2,750. We are still working with our partner team to get a final estimate of the cost of the trip, but we do expect that it will likely settle around $2,750. This is a longer trip and travel related expenses have risen in cost over the past 24 months, but we’re doing our very best to make this trip as affordable as we can. The program fee includes all hotels, meals, and admission to activities. The Hoeft T&M Program covers airfare costs for all participants. Students are responsible for their own walking-around money, usually in the neighborhood of $100 - $200.

Airfare: The T&M Program will cover the cost of all airfare for the trip. All students are required to depart with the group on the same outbound flight. You may not join the trip late. For the return trip, if a student would like to fly to an airport different than where the T&M group will be returning, you may do so, provided that you cover the difference in cost of the trip. Reach out to Sam to discuss this option, if needed. We will have a bus departing from and returning to Champaign on both ends of the trip, but students may choose to be dropped off and picked up at O’Hare if that works better.

Relevant deadlines: The list below summarizes key dates related to this course and trip.

• October 1: Deadline to register for the course BUS 199 SA
• October 1: Deadline to submit Study Abroad Application, link to be provided above
• ~October 15: Last day to drop the course without incurring any fees related to the travel course
• October 17 – December 7: Required prep course before trip, mostly self-study with a few mandatory meetings
• ~December 1: Payment due for trip fee
• December 30 – January 15: T&M trip to South Africa

Scholarships: In addition to covering the cost of airfare for all students (approximately $1,200 per student), The Hoeft T&M Program will offer scholarships for students who demonstrate financial need. We anticipate offering scholarships of up to $1,500. Students may also choose to apply for financial support from their home college or other entities on campus who support international study abroad experiences. The scholarship application will be included with the study abroad application. If you are interested in participating in this trip but believe that finances might be a stumbling block, the best advice is to complete the study abroad and scholarship application to see what you’re eligible for and then talk to Sam about options for the rest.

Upcoming international trips: There are several other opportunities on the horizon for T&M students to participate in international travel experiences. As you are weighing your options for joining us on the South Africa trip, I want to highlight the other opportunities available so that you can weigh your options. T&M students may apply to participate in more than one trip, but if there is more interest than we can accommodate for a particular program, we will prioritize students who are traveling internationally with T&M for their first time. Provided that there is space available, students may participate in as many7 T&M trips as they are interested in.

• January ’23: Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
• May ’23: Panama City, Panama
• June ’23: International Business Plan Competition in Germany, exact location TBD
• January ’24: Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• May ’24: Israel, exact locations TBD