Eighteen Ways to Help You Go InternationalAs a university student you can take control of your life and work towards building an exciting international career in the field of your choice. Imagine working for UNESCO in Paris, on an AIDS project in Togo, as a foreign trade intern at an embassy in Madrid, or as a student in Copenhagen. Whether you spend a lifetime working and living overseas or you go abroad just once, you should actively consider taking the plunge. There are thousands of international opportunities available and you can get started on an international career by building relevant experience now, while still at school. Why? Because going international is just plain hot! So read on and consider this:
Ride the Wave of the New Global Economy
In the new global economy, millions of cross-border relationships are taking place in all sectors of the economy. A new workforce is emerging to manage these relationships and they have a new currency - a clearly definable set of “international work skills.” Are you preparing yourself for this new global reality?
If you want to participate in this new economy, you need to build cross-cultural experience while at university. By doing this, you will be prepared for the emerging job market. Whatever their background, most international employees start their careers in the same place: they study abroad, learn a foreign language, travel extensively, intern abroad, and take international courses. The lesson here is that you need to gain exposure to other cultures so that you can become proficient in dealing with people who have a different perspective than you.
Here are 18 ways to gain international experience and start building your international personality:
Gain International Experience At Home While Studying At University
1. Study something international: Take a course with an international focus in your field or in a completely separate field. Having three or four internationally-focused courses looks great on a résumé.
2. Join multi-ethnic student work teams: Choose international students to complete projects within all your courses. This is a valuable and easy way to show employers that you have been successful and have experience in a cross-cultural work environment.
3. Target foreign students in your classes for friendship: Have coffees with them regularly and you will learn much about their cultural habits; be surprised when you find yourself leaning more about your own culture. As your relationship progresses, join foreign students in social events, invite them to visit your family, and try to visit them in their home country, perhaps on Christmas break.
4. Join international clubs and gain awareness of the workings of international organizations: There are many student groups on campus with a specific international focus. Take on positions of leadership and begin gaining experience managing programs in an international setting.
5. Develop your international I.Q.: You need to have an international understanding of the social, political, and economic aspects which affect the world. Read international magazines and learn to name the 193 countries in the world.
6. Network internationally: Find internationally-focused people who can open doors for you. Associate yourself with professors doing international research. Write inquisitively to international experts who have impressed you. Plan to write essays that require you to engage in conversations with NGO managers or civil servants at the provincial and federal levels in your field. Call up a long lost cousin who is abroad and get yourself invited to stay with him/her for a semester abroad.
Go Abroad While Studying At University
7. Study at least one semester abroad: This is an absolute must. To make this first step easier, pair up with a friend and go abroad together. Go abroad in your third to fifth semester in an eight-semester/four-year program. If in a Masters Program, you have even greater academic flexibility to take time off for travel abroad while completing your degree.
8. Apply for international scholarships and bursaries: There are more of these available then you would first expect.
9. Take a gap year off for international travel: Don’t hesitate to take one year off while completing a four-year university program or just after graduating. If financing your trip is an issue, work six months and then travel for six months. Save money by combining traveling or language learning after a semester studying abroad.
10. Join a short-term volunteer-abroad program: There are hundreds of programs, each providing opportunities to travel and learn. Many programs also provide opportunities to build leadership skills. All of these experiences are valuable.
11. Participate in international conferences: Help organize or volunteer at academic conferences on your university campus and search the web for opportunities with international conferences in your city.
12. Network while overseas with people who work and live internationally: Research and organize your networking strategy on the internet and through acquaintances who can put you in contact with diplomats or international business people. Visit their offices, take tours of historical and political sites, volunteer with international organizations, and make contact with expatriate clubs.
Gain Professional International Experience After Studying At University
13. Intern abroad: Don’t miss out on the many fantastic international internship opportunities sponsored by private business, international organizations, foundations, volunteer agencies, and governments. And don’t forget about the often successful strategy of creating your own self-guided international internship.
14. Extend your stay abroad by organizing a junior-consulting position after your internship or study abroad experience: Entice international employers and consultants by selling your knowledge of local contacts and host country cross-cultural knowledge.
15. Teach English overseas and use this as a stepping-stone to other international jobs: There are tens of thousands of Canadians and Americans teaching English abroad. With over one billion people wanting to learn English, you can easily go abroad to teach English in the country of your choice and work your way into your field of expertise. For example, if you are a business student, upgrade your teaching job to teach business English and you will meet business people who can employ you. Others have done the same teaching science in English, music in English, and technical English, to name but a few possibilities. Make use of your host-country contacts to graduate from teaching English to becoming an English editor, reporter, tour guide, or cross-cultural business consultant.
16. Learn another language and culture with a full immersion study abroad program: For less than it costs to lie about on your parents’ couch for four months, you could move to the wonderful city of Antigua in Guatemala, live with a local family, and have a full-time, one-on-one language instructor to teach you Spanish. And presto! In four months your life is changed forever: you have become fully functional in Spanish. For a little more you can learn French in Québec City; or for even less, in Cameroon.
17. Do not underestimate the value of backpacking for six months: While traveling the world and interacting closely with people from other countries, you will learn the skills required to be international and capture the interest of international employers.
18. Travel and backpack as a cross-cultural traveler and gain professional experience: Try visiting organizations related to your field. For example, an environmental student could offer to translate a trail guide for an eco-tourism business into English; a business student may easily set up Quicken Accounting software for a non-governmental organization; an engineer can visit a mining site; and almost anyone can offer to teach Word or Excel to a third-world NGO.
The Essentials
Experience has shown that those who are successful at finding international work have all done something a little extraordinary to land that first job. They have gone out on a limb, acted boldly (but politely), have been entrepreneurial, have sacrificed certainty and taken risks to gain international experience and obtain that great job. You can prove to international employers that you have what it takes simply by being curious and having fun while abroad. You may find many excuses for not going abroad, but in the final analysis there are many more reasons to go abroad than to sit around at home doing the same old thing. Get out there and enjoy the world.
Author and Publisher: The BIG Guide to Living and Working Overseas
Intercultural Systems / Systèmes Interculturels (ISSI) Inc.
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , www.WorkingOverseas.com
Your GoStudy Team
www.gostudy.ca
