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Hundreds of students are keen to comply with one of the proposals in the Vice-Chancellor's UWA Futures paper.

They are all but rushing overseas to reach the targeted figure for undergraduates studying abroad.

The goal was to double the current participation figure by 2020.  But Carole Rakotonirina, co-ordinator of Study Abroad and Student Exchange, said the target may well be reached long before then.

"The program is growing fast," she said. "We had 435 applicants for outbound travel in the last round of applications and we have about 250 incoming students either on exchange or as fee-paying Study Abroad participants."

The annual Study Aboard Fair last month filled a marquee on James Oval, having become too big for its previous location in the Guild Village courtyard.

There were 14 new Student Exchange partners, including the universities of Toronto and Western Ontario and Dalhousie (Nova Scotia) from Canada; Sciences Po Lille and University Pierre et Marie Curie from France; universities of Zurich and Lugano from Switzerland; University of Ferrara from Italy; and three new universities from each of the US and the UK.

Maastricht University in the Netherlands has been a partner for a few years and exchange student Patrick Mackenzie, who spent a semester there last year, was reunited with one of his economics lecturers, Tom van Veen.

All Maastricht's courses are based on Problem-Based Learning, which appealed to Patrick.

"I did four units of economics at Maastricht's School of Business and Economics," said Pat, who is also studying Law.  "They were all small classes, no big lectures, which is just what I like."

He said he had been looking for a small university town and when he found Maastricht with its student population of just 16,000 and the method of learning he preferred, the decision was easy.

"I'm not the only one who sees these benefits," he said. "There were nearly 1,000 exchange students at Maastricht from all over the world.  There were nine different nationalities represented on my floor of the apartment building."

Pat said he chose to do a semester abroad because he wanted to break up his six year (double) degree.

"You learn so much more about a place and a culture when you're living and studying there, rather than just travelling through on a holiday," he said. "I made so many friends. Some of them are coming to Perth for my 21 ^st birthday later this year."

Dr van Veen said almost all undergraduate students added a fourth year, and a Master's degree, to their Bachelor's degrees. "The labour market almost demands it now," he said. "It is the same in many countries and I'm sure it will move that way in Australia too."