Go abroad - are you up to the challenge?

Education is too often thought of as a process of transmitting information or ideas. I think education has a larger role: I see education as a process that allows me to explore my own personal values and goals, gives me insight into the human condition, provides the tools to make a contribution to society, and creates the mental structures to develop wisdom.

I just returned from Shanghai, where I participated in a review of the UM-SJTU Joint Institute at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.   It was a packed trip, punctuated by helpful feedback from the review team and great connections with some of the most amazing people I know.

We helped to create the Joint Institute because it could be designed as “landing pad” for College of Engineering students to study engineering, abroad, in English, in China, during the summer!  And while all classes there are taught in English, they are mostly populated by the Chinese Joint Institute students, The American students can take classes in Chinese language, and Chinese culture.   So the American students study and live alongside Chinese students, run around after hours like students everywhere, doing things maybe I wish they would not, all the while meeting Chinese students at one of the strongest engineering schools in China.  It's a life changing event.

Whenever I go to China I’m very aware of being a minority: people take pictures of me, adults sneak peeks and little kids gape.   And the differences are more than skin deep: my values and expectations are, deeply, the result of my society and upbringing; they are the product of my culture. While I believe in universal human values, those commonalities are buried under many layers of cultural subtlety.  Learning how to work with someone who is different in a deep way is a challenge, and learning how to survive in a human environment where my reflexive actions are the wrong ones, is difficult.  It’s difficult and frustrating, but taking these challenges on provides an unparalleled opportunity for growth that cannot be created within the normal campus experience.

Those who return from a great experience abroad, one where their own assumptions of culture and expectations have been challenged, have a light in their eyes: they have changed, and they get it.  I wonder if you are up to the challenge?