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Why Travel Abroad ? · The Whigham School Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker: Hey Jeremy, how's it going?
• 0:01
  Speaker: Doing all right.
• 0:02
  Speaker: How are you, Steve?
• 0:03
  Speaker: Hey, thanks for jumping on the call.
• 0:05
  Speaker: Appreciate it.
• 0:05
  Speaker: We've been bouncing a few ideas back and forth of what to talk about.
• 0:09
  Speaker: And I think uh one thing we wanted to make sure we had a conversation about, because it's so pertinent to so many people, even those that are going to the Whigham School or those who are not, is why study abroad?
• 0:19
  Speaker: Why is that such an important topic?
• 0:21
  Speaker: So I want to open that up and let's have a conversation about uh the benefits, the risks, the downsides, the upsides of study abroad.
• 0:28
  Speaker: Why don't you kick it off since you and I have uh have debated this so much?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for us I think it's significant that study abroad is not really in our mission statement per se.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It's integral to what our program is, practically speaking.
• 0:45
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: But what we're really about is developing global leaders who will do substantial good.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And we believe that the study abroad context is very important to that.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Obviously, you have the word global there, right?
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And you have to learn something about the worldwide community.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: But it's more in our case, it's not the end in itself.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And I think sometimes study abroad in the academic setting kind of becomes an end.
• 1:10
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe not programmatically, maybe that's not the program design, but I think a lot of students do it because a lot of us like to travel.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And you know, a lot of people just want a new experience.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: And that's fine, but that's not the essence of what we're trying to do at the Whigham School.
• 1:27
  Speaker: That's right.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: But we do think it's very important.
• 1:30
  Speaker: It is.
• 1:30
  Speaker: But that's uh that's our assumption.
• 1:32
  Speaker: But is it really true?
• 1:34
  Speaker: I mean, do we really need to go out to see the world?
• 1:37
  Speaker: Can't we just read about it in books, watch um YouTube videos, have guest lecturers come in who tell us about the world?
• 1:43
  Speaker: Why do you think it's such an important thing to experience it directly as a student?
• 1:48
  Speaker: I'm playing devil's advocate on purpose.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna play the devil's advocate with you.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna answer your question in a roundabout way.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So a lot of study abroad is not actually all that useful from the perspective of making people more globally aware.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Actually, actually, a lot of the research done on study abroad comes back somewhat negative.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: A lot of the research points to study abroad, at least in the North American context, as being sort of all this money spent on just travel.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: And the research shows that a lot of times study abroad actually just calcifies people in their monocultural perspective or assumptions about other cultures or their lack of understanding.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So study abroad most of the time is not that helpful in making people grow in a global perspective and in our cultural competence.
• 2:44
  Speaker: That's that seems almost counterintuitive.
• 2:46
  Speaker: Why do you think that is?
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: So that's what a lot of the research says.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: You can read articles and stuff about it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: The research is also fairly uniform in giving the solution to that and identifying when study abroad is effective.
• 3:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Because again, study abroad can't be just about the experience, just about going to another place.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Now, I will say this to be a little positive.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I will say even if you don't actually learn that much or develop your intercultural competence, you know, it's still an experience where you meet new people and you will get some new ideas.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: You'll you'll see things in first person that otherwise you wouldn't see.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And that's better than seeing it in an encyclopedia or on a website or whatever.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So there can be other benefits to study abroad and even to tourism, right?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Beyond developing globally interculturally competent leaders.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: But if we really want people to understand that cultural differences are out there and how to navigate them and adapt to them, then the key in all the research is you have to help people to reflect on the experience.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And that may sound kind of simple.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, it it probably sounds kind of simple because we think, well, we all reflect, but most of us don't actually deeply reflect on a lot of things.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: We just go along with our own presuppositions.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So in my experience, what I do with students is I just I have built-in reflection, both written reflections and group discussion times.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Not where it's just not not vague questions like, oh, you know, what was what did you do today or what did you learn?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: But very specific questions about okay, what was different in in your cultural background, what is different about this one thing you experienced.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So, you know, public transportation or the architecture, reflect on what was different about it, what made you react against it, what made you like it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So reflecting on specific things, that is the key to making study abroad effective, a perspective like ours where we really want to develop global leaders.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: We want them to be competent in adapting to cultures.
• 4:55
  Speaker: And over the years you have too, because you've actually conducted uh, you know, study abroad programs with universities before.
• 5:01
  Speaker: I've done the same thing.
• 5:02
  Speaker: I've also been a student in a study abroad program.
• 5:05
  Speaker: So I've seen it from both sides.
• 5:07
  Speaker: I have I've yet to run into anybody who has studied abroad who has had the the reaction, no, it wasn't worth it.
• 5:16
  Speaker: Um everyone has come back and said, I'm so glad I did that.
• 5:19
  Speaker: So I think we got a high level of expect uh you know positive expectations that have come off of study abroad and that they always come back and say, Boy, I'm so glad I was I went to you know France for six weeks, or I went to Italy, or or to Japan.
• 5:37
  Speaker: Those are all great, you know, th great experiences for people.
• 5:40
  Speaker: But you're saying that how it affects me as a person and how I look at the future and how I interact with people in the future, just a one-off uh study abroad program may not give us everything I'm expecting it to give.
• 5:53
  Speaker: Do is that what I'm understanding that properly?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean I I'm not showing data here, right?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of data to show for that.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So for us, the Whigham School, intercultural adaptation, global leaders, competent leaders, that's what we're about.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That's what we want this experience to be about, and that's what we want study abroad to accomplish.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: But but again, there are other reasons to do study abroad.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: There are there are reasons to be a tourist.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: There are reasons to be on a tour bus and hit all the major museums and sites and monuments.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: But we just we have to understand that's not going to develop people's intercultural competence.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: That's that's that's a proven really from study abroad research.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: But there are personal benefits to it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you do learn things and it is enjoyable to do it.
• 6:39
  Speaker: Your lens opens up.
• 6:39
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 6:40
  Speaker: Your lens opens up to the world, and that's always very helpful.
• 6:43
  Speaker: You'll find yourself a lot more accepting of new ideas from different places, but that's also very, very helpful.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say so to illustrate the calcifying tendency, in other words, we we we travel and we enjoy the experience and we think we see new things and we think we learn new things, but the calcifying tendency of sticking with all of our cultural preferences and presuppositions.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example most of us can't actually relate to, but that maybe we'll clarify it a little bit.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Think about all of our presidents and prime ministers and high-level diplomats traveling around in the world.
• 7:16
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: They get abroad opportunities all the time.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: And they can very easily, more easily than most of us, travel to any country, right?
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Or many countries.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: And they do.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: You know, heads of state visit each other all the time.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: But they're doing it for the exclusive reason of promoting their national interests.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: They don't tend to learn from each other.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: They don't tend to develop their perspective or grow in their intercultural competence.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Now, again, that's not something we can relate to because most of us, probably nobody listening to this, is a high-level diplomat or head of state.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: But that's the same thing that happens to us even when we just go to tour, you know, London, Paris, Tokyo, or whatever.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So we have to intentionally go with the objective to learn, but to reflect on what we learn and and and to and to understand how it's going to change our our perspective.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And that can be effective from this academic perspective.
• 8:16
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 8:16
  Speaker: And that reflection is something we're baking into the Whigham School, which is going to be very helpful.
• 8:21
  Speaker: And having multiple uh, you know, uh points of view internationally is very helpful because sometimes I think if I've been to London and I come back and I think, well, everybody that lives in Europe thinks like they do in London.
• 8:34
  Speaker: They don't.
• 8:34
  Speaker: Um I can become actually I can close my mind a bit, actually, uh just from that limited experience.
• 8:40
  Speaker: Um so that's the reason why we've expanded that so much.
• 8:43
  Speaker: And I think the reason the Whigham School is uh really paying very close attention to this is because we don't think this next generation is going to be able to migrate uh to navigate the future nearly as handily as if they don't have the exposure to the world and know exactly what it all means and develop the empathy skills and the communication skills to be able to connect with other people.
• 9:07
  Speaker: It's just the world is just beginning becoming more and more knit together through technology, through travel, through trade.
• 9:13
  Speaker: All these things are happening that is changing the rules of the game.
• 9:17
  Speaker: It's very hard for anybody who wants to truly be a leader just to say, hey, I'm gonna just stay in my little local community and I don't have to worry about the world.
• 9:25
  Speaker: And the world's coming into us.
• 9:26
  Speaker: We have foreign companies investing into the United States, we have American companies trying to reach into the foreign markets.
• 9:33
  Speaker: There's so many things going on that the future the future generation that we're looking at right now, uh, they've got a different um set of issues and problems and perspectives that they have to carry with them that may not have been as needful just 30, 40, 50 years ago.
• 9:51
  Speaker: And uh so that's what excites me about it.
• 9:52
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 9:53
  Speaker: So are you saying then it uh study abroad's a good thing, no matter what?
• 9:57
  Speaker: Okay.
• 9:57
  Speaker: It may not do as much for you.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: We're focused on one specific benefit.
• 10:04
  Speaker: Right, right.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And the but I will say too, when I when I do intercultural training, you know, with business people, or even when I work with people who have had an intercultural background, they've grown up across cultures, different languages, yes, um, and international business people who travel all over the place.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Those people come into intercultural training with me, assuming that they're already very interculturally competent.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: They tend to be more calcified and actually have lower scores on intercultural assessments than people who who have not really traveled much.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And they're always shocked by that and sometimes even sort of um they're emotionally affected by it when you tell them, like, you have a lot of work to do.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: We need to discuss this.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I I've been all over the world.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Like that, yeah, that's not that's not in itself making you a more competent global citizen or a better human being.
• 10:59
  Speaker: I bet that would be kind of a that'd be a rude awakening, I think.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: It's a root awakening to somebody who's, you know, been to 50 countries in their 30-year career, and then they take an assessment that has them kind of like as a cultural novice.
• 11:12
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And with newer generations, like you're talking about, too, it's gonna be the same thing, but it's a different dynamic.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But with newer generations now, we can see anything in the world anytime.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We can see pictures, videos.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: So we've we have the we have this deception that like we understand the world and we know about it.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's it's very different being able to name all the prime ministers of Japan since World War II, and being able to actually deeply understand why a Japanese person acts a certain way and then adapt to that and not letting my emotions take over and say, Oh, I hate that culture and the way they do it, or or I hate my culture and the way we do it, because we don't do it like them.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Neither of those is a healthy reaction.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So whether somebody has seen the world on TikTok or traveled the world in airplanes, that does not make them ready to adapt to cultural differences.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Because cultural differences where we're talking about behaviors and social patterns that are so, so deep that we tend to not even think about them.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Until it's in air space.
• 12:19
  Speaker: We don't really see them until they surface in very usually awkward ways.
• 12:24
  Speaker: Um anyhow, the the Whigham School, we know that these are issues that we have to deal with.
• 12:30
  Speaker: Make sure we do study abroad in a in a much more enlightened way.
• 12:35
  Speaker: So uh I appreciate the thought that you put into what we're doing at the Whigham School because I think it's gonna really help solve that fundamental issue of calcification.
• 12:43
  Speaker: And uh that's gonna make us much more flexible and adaptable to to the world as it changes in the next 20 to 50 years.
• 12:51
  Speaker: And that's the exciting part.
• 12:52
  Speaker: So structurally, we're putting it all together so that they can reflect, they can actually integrate thoughts from other cultures, how it affects us, how us, how we affect them, all those kinds of interplay that happens in their minds.
• 13:04
  Speaker: That's a part of the Whigham School program.
• 13:06
  Speaker: And I think that's really going to help make study abroad more than just, boy, that was a nice experience.
• 13:11
  Speaker: I'm glad I did it too.
• 13:12
  Speaker: This is fundamentally changing the way I think about the world and how I interact with the world.
• 13:17
  Speaker: If we can get to that point, I think that's when we got leaders who can really do substantial good.
• 13:21
  Speaker: Would you agree?
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: In all your travels, because you've taught global leaders all around the world.
• 13:27
  Speaker: Yep.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Is there a time you remember where it it sort of dawned on you that that that's what you were beginning to do?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I think it was when I was in India.
• 13:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:38
  Speaker: I noticed it most when I was in India, and it was because of I think really of the graciousness of my hosts and the way that they brought they drew me in.
• 13:46
  Speaker: And so that allowed me to really reformulate my patterns of thinking and be able to see that there are other ways of being able to address even the very simple things of life.
• 13:56
  Speaker: And I think they they awakened me more than anybody was my uh as my host back twenty years ago when I was in uh India for business.
• 14:05
  Speaker: But been around the world, all s all continents and all this.
• 14:08
  Speaker: But this is going to be something really exciting about the Whigham School.
• 14:11
  Speaker: I think we will be able to show the rest of higher education what we're doing.
• 14:16
  Speaker: I think they'll be able to benefit from the work we do and uh and just really approve the whole prospect of how we how the United States and our citizens and even citizens around the world, no matter where they're coming from, can actually use these kinds of tools to be able to to make the world a better place.
• 14:34
  Speaker: And that is our hope and our and our plan.
• 14:36
  Speaker: So I'm excited about this.
• 14:38
  Speaker: Uh the net of it all, study abroad, great idea, study abroad done with intentionality, even a better idea, study abroad with intentionality and reflective and being able to integrate ideas, that is the the apex.
• 14:52
  Speaker: And uh that's where we'll be.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So and that's why we like our at the at one level and just the idea of study abroad and travel, that's kind of our marketing, right?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Like, and that and that's significant in our program.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: You're gonna visit more than 40 countries, you're gonna hit all the major continents.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: You're gonna hit all the continents except Antarctica, right?
• 15:09
  Speaker: Except Antarctica.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Um and that that's something in and of itself.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: But then you drill down and you to our mission statement and what we're doing as we travel, we're not just dropping into each country, taking pictures and leaving, right?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: We're really trying to deeply understand each community we're in and learn how to adapt to them ourselves.
• 15:29
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 15:30
  Speaker: And learn from them, they can learn from us.
• 15:31
  Speaker: So I think that's really the cool part.
• 15:33
  Speaker: Well, we'll tell delve into this in more detail, but this is the reason why we wanted to have this conversation.
• 15:38
  Speaker: Is for anybody out there who's thinking about whether they should or should not go into a study abroad program.
• 15:43
  Speaker: We're saying absolutely you must go.
• 15:46
  Speaker: If there's any way possible they should be uh traveling abroad.
• 15:49
  Speaker: Secondly, if you can do it with a program that has that teaches you how to be able to reflect on what you're doing, is that's the ideal, and that's where the Whigham School is, and I'm sure there are a few others out there that do the same.
• 16:02
  Speaker: But that's the ultimate experience that's going to be the biggest benefit.
• 16:06
  Speaker: If you need to know more, go to Whighamschool.org and um we'll put this on the course uh as a little subtitle here.
• 16:14
  Speaker: Uh Whighamschool.org.
• 16:15
  Speaker: Visit it, learn more about it.
• 16:17
  Speaker: If you have questions, uh reach out to both either me or Jeremy.
• 16:21
  Speaker: If you really want the academic side, Jeremy is your guy.
• 16:24
  Speaker: Um I can give you more of the big picture.
• 16:26
  Speaker: Jeremy will know the technicalities of how we're doing everything.
• 16:29
  Speaker: We would love to talk to you more about it because it's such a critical conversation.
• 16:33
  Speaker: And uh we'll talk more about this.
• 16:35
  Speaker: Thanks a lot, Jeremy.
• 16:36
  Speaker: Appreciate your time today.
• 16:37
  Speaker: See you next time.