Life changing experiences

Dennis Williams, a professor at Southern Nazarene University, shared an article with me that talked about the results of some research done on short study abroad trips, the kinds where a bunch of students and a professor travel together for 10-14 days. Most of us who are involved in international education haven't felt that trips like that really made much of a difference in students' lives. Perhaps we're wrong. According to the study, several years after graduation, students who took short term trips are just as likely to report that they were significantly influenced by their overseas trip as students who spent a semester overseas. I think that for many students, just the experience of being in a different culture and learning to see themselves through others' eyes opens their eyes in ways that no amount of classroom experience can.

I remember my first experience outside the U.S. When I was 16, I spent a month during the summer working as a volunteer in Mexico. That short experience made a tremendous impact on me that eventually led to living and working in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Canada. Quite often I still wish I were living in one of those locations or in some other country where I could learn and experience life among people who have life experiences and perspectives different than my own and that have so much to teach me about the big, wide world.

I thought about that because I am following Facebook posts by SNU students in Austria, Costa Rica and Ecuador. All of them sound like they are having a great time. I am glad for that, and I wonder what kind of life changing experiences they will have. Will they develop such a love for a particular place or people that they will end up back there studying or working? Will this experience just be the jumping off point for more overseas experiences? In fact, two of our students who are in Vienna studied in Russia a couple of semesters ago, so they might be becoming serial "study abroaders" (however, I know that at least one of them is entering law school next semester, so more study abroad will have to be postponed for a while). I don't know what changes these experiences will make in the lives of our students, but I have no doubt that there will be changes. I look forward to finding out more when they are back on campus in the fall.