Global Perspectives

Winter study abroad at the University of Kassel (Germany)

• Completed in January 2017
• 100+ hours

While at Kassel, I took a class on renewable energy sources during which we had seminars on a variety of energy sources as well as ways to tie renewable energy to water filtration systems which directly links to my challenge. This experience immersed me in a new culture which was both scary and amazing at the same time.

Global Engineering Course

• Completed in the Fall 2016 semester
• 100+ hours

Through this class, I was able to work with a team of students from Porto which taught me how to work on a diverse team, as well as to work with a time zone difference. This course also led me to my Gold experience where I will be studying with the same students I worked with during this course.

Learning Objectives:

Program Learning Objectives:

Perspectivism

• Being surrounded by a different culture changes perspective on other cultures and global issues

Persistence and Flexibility

• Being in a different culture can be anxious and scary at first
• While abroad, one must be persistent and flexible if one hopes to successfully adjust and survive in another culture

Global Perspectives Learning Objectives:

Working with Diverse Teams

• In both my Global engineering course and being abroad in Portugal I had/ will have the ability to work on a team with Portuguese students who are very different culturally as well as have different majors than myself. While in Portugal, both of my courses had group projects where I worked with students from a variety of countries.

Global Citizenship

• I gained the most experience for this while being in Portugal. Spending five months in a place truly makes it feel like a second home to you; I will always feel a tie to Portugal and the Portuguese culture, and I feel like even now that if I go back I will be a local, not a tourist.

Cultural Awareness

• By living in multiple countries, I have experienced a variety of cultures. There is also the adjustment to fitting into the culture that you are living among, something that I definitely learned while being abroad.
• Living in Germany I became immediately aware of some major differences between German and American culture. In Portugal, this difference was even more obvious, to the point where I saw German and American culture as almost similar. There was major culture shock when I was in Portugal, as well as major reverse culture shock upon returning to the US. The vast differences in culture overall makes you so much more aware of the culture you are in and how to try to fit into said culture.

Openness to Difference

• Things abroad are inherently going to be different than things are in the US. Being abroad taught me that you need to accept that things are different, because if you spend time dwelling on how the countries differ then you will never notice how things are the same, or how these differences can actually make your experience that much better.
• I actually came to really enjoy many of the cultural differences while away, although there will always be things that you will miss from your native culture. These differences teaches you so much about yourself and others, but you also realized that despite these differences, we are all the same in so many ways as well.

Situational Awareness

• One of the best ways to fit in while abroad is to observe what everyone else is doing and to do the same. If you act as you normally would in America, you will easily stand out which is not always a good thing abroad
• You become much more observant of what is going on around you so that you can best fit in and adapt
• I definitely had a few times when I was not very situationally aware and regretted it, but these are learning experiences in themselves.

Interpersonal Communication

• I will be in classes and on a research team with people from Portugal as well as other international institutions. In order to work well with them, I must form personal connections which will only be accomplished through effective interpersonal communication