This six-credit international experience is for students wishing to gain valuable experience and exposure in an international professional work environment. The course purpose is to enhance the students’ internship experience in the field making it more valuable by providing the opportunity to analyze, discuss, and contextualize their work and evaluate personal experience and accomplishments. The course is divided into two different thematic sections:
1) The course helps students understand issues related to their internship placements business environment and the peculiarities of local contemporary socio-economic trends.
2) The course actively engages in an experiential learning journey towards personal development and career empowerment, by examining critical strategies for personal and career success in a global marketplace and evaluating personal attitudes, skills, interests and knowledge.
3) The course directly addresses professional development by engaging participants in formal career readiness exercises. The goal is for participants to understand transferrable skills, cross-cultural skills and global competence and articulate these elements in the form of cover letters, resumes and interviews in order to better prepare for entering today’s job market.
The course helps students make the necessary connections between intercultural learning and personal employability so that they better understand and articulate study abroad experiences in ways meaningful for personal and professional advancement, enhancement of global competence and intercultural awareness.
Overall Course Objectives:
- Discuss and describe the main features and issues relevant to contemporary labor market in the destination country, business environment, and socio-economic developments.
- Critically reflect on personal attributes and assess strengths and skills necessary for success in your field and career ambitions.
- Examine 21st century job skills, employment trends and their relation to the global marketplace of careers and professional development.
- Explore and identify international career opportunities in your field of interest
- Develop a “tool kit” of concepts and information regarding the cultural and business climate of the country in focus.
- Recognize, observe, and describe cultural differences and their impact on people’s behaviors, attitudes and values through active and targeted engagement with host culture, people, and city.
- Recognize and describe how your professional competences, global competence, and intercultural awareness have improved during the internship and apply the acquired knowledge, attitudes and skills to personal and professional goals.
- Develop and articulate a personal employment narrative both verbally and in writing that integrates study abroad experience with career professionalism and global competence.