You Wouldn’t Take Cooking Lessons at a Kitchen in an Auto Shop

Well maybe you could… I’m sure this is the next Food Network Challenge. My point is that while you may have a perfectly functioning oven in the middle of a greasy garage, a skilled teacher who is about to tell you how to make a soufflé that will rise to the stars… look around and you’ll find you’re surrounded by colleagues who are skilled in doing extremely intricate and technical things to cars, trucks or airplanes… but they may not be able to give you tips on why you shouldn’t open the oven door before your soufflé is done. It’s not ideal (for learning, though also for the soufflé).

I think a lot of students pick something they want to study but don’t always think of their surroundings. What would be the most ideal setting to study your course in?

Honestly, think about it.

For me, I was happy to do my undergraduate degree close to home because I knew I wanted to do an MA in globalization studies and I knew I wanted to do it abroad. It made the most sense for me that I pick a global hub that would bring together many nationalities and offer up a truly international perspective. Of course at first, this wasn’t what was in the front of my mind; I just wanted to go abroad and I wanted to have an adventure. Though once in classes, it became severely apparent that I had made the right decision.

While discussing adapting television programming for foreign markets, it would have been one thing to get the bullet points given to us by the books, but it was an entirely different experience to have hands fly up across the room from students wanting to share their stories about what works in their home countries. It was this class discussion and the many like it that came later, that made me realize I was extremely lucky to be getting all of this extra information… and more importantly, that I would have never gotten it had I stayed in my small town in Michigan.

Now I don’t want you to think that I’ve got anything bad to say about small towns and small town universities. I had a great experience going to one where the classes were small and the quality of lectures was quite high. My point is that for my further study, it was achingly important to get to listen to students from China talk about how the government influences media, listen to people from Brazil commenting on how their shows are adapted to foreign markets, explain to everyone how America did the digital switchover and get perspectives from other religions about how US shows are received abroad. I wouldn’t have found a student mix quite like one in London in most US cities. The student diversity here was not only really interesting; it was proving to be a key component of my studies.

What I want you to consider is how valuable getting a global perspective in the classroom is. Whether you’re studying business, arts or sciences, think about what kind of job you’ll want to get after you graduate and then consider how a degree abroad will help you understand culture, how the world does business or just how it can hone your people skills while you teach others about your own culture and work on projects with students who may not share your same set of norms and values.

Employers will want to see that you have knowledge and skills, but more importantly they’ll also want to see that you can adapt to new ideas and deal with a wide range of people. There’s no better way of telling someone in an interview that you can handle stakeholders from overseas offices like showing them that you’ve done a degree abroad and have the expertise and sensitivity needed to bridge any gaps.

If you’re unsure about going abroad or don’t think you can afford it, look into funding options and talk with people who have done it themselves. In my case, federal funding was available and doing a course in the UK was actually cheaper than if I would have stayed in the US and I may not have had the thrust to go abroad if I didn’t have friends that offered advice and support.

Consider your surroundings carefully; you may be due for an adventure.