Advising the Global Citizen: Study Abroad Adventures - Adventures in Advising

Ever wondered what happens when advising professionals trade their campus offices for classrooms to lead students across the globe ? In this special panel episode, guest host Gavin Farber brings together Dr. Sarah Imam, The Citadel; Brittany Hoover, University of Florida; Chris Kirchhof, University of Pittsburgh; and Jill Paulson, University of South Dakota. These incredible advising professionals share their journeys leading students across the globe.

These advising professionals show how “other duties as assigned” can turn into life-changing opportunities for students and staff. Packed with travel tales, cultural lessons, and tips for starting your own program, this conversation will inspire you (and maybe make you want to renew your passport).

If you’ve ever dreamed of taking your advising work international or just love a good story about students becoming global citizens, take a listen to this episode!

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey, there. Welcome back to the adventures in advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, one of your co hosts, along with Ryan Scheckel. Ryan and I are taking this episode off from hosting to welcome back, returning guest and returning guest host, and that is Gavin Farber from the College of New Jersey. Gavin, welcome back.

Gavin Farber  
Thanks, Matt. It's great to be back on the pod. 

Matt Markin  
I love your interviews. I'm glad that you're back on and I know this will be yet another incredible conversation. So I'm going to jump off, bring your guests on and go ahead and get started.

Gavin Farber  
Well, welcome everyone to today's episode of Adventures in Advising. We're titling it today advising the global citizen, and today you're going to meet four different advising practitioners from across our membership who help students work through and actually attend online, not online, but a broad, immersive experience, or studying abroad, but in a different format. Because sometimes you know, the traditional Study Abroad semester a year may not work for all student populations, but the short term study abroad, mainly in summer or winter, are great opportunities for your students to learn as global citizens, engage outside of their normal comfort zone of where they are currently taking classes. And what I love about our four panelists is that they've gone to all corners of the globe and have really experienced immersive, transformative experiences with their students on board, and they're going to just sort of explain and share how they got involved in it. Because we hear so many advisors and advising administrators ask us, what more can I do? I have mid level, I don't know what else I can do in my role. Is there something else I could do? And this is going to fall under those other duties as a science, slash extras that you might be able to work with your current institution, work with your current supervisor, if you do have a passion for the global adventure, if you have that spirit inside of you. So what I thought I would do is just tell you who our panelists are and let them introduce themselves. But I have Dr. Sarah Imam from the Citadel in South Carolina, Brittany Hooper from the University of Florida, Chris Kirchhof from the University of Pittsburgh, and Jill Paulson from the University of South Dakota. So there's diversity of where all of us are from as well. We're from all over the US to share these beautiful experiences. So what I'm going to ask all of you first are, tell us who you are, where you work on your campus, and how long have you been working in the advising field for? And Jill, you're my direct right? So I'll start with you.

Jill Paulson  
Awesome. Well, my name is Jill Paulson, and I am an Academic Advisor at the University of South Dakota, and I've been in higher ed for over 20 years now, but in advising, specifically for seven and love advising. I don't foresee myself leaving advising. I'll probably end my career here. I just really love advising, and I specifically work with teacher education students, which I think is also a lot of fun. Getting to work with students who are planning to be our future educators is, I think, a really important role in terms of helping them along that journey. And really enjoy that element as well.

Gavin Farber  
Britt you're next to Jill. 

Brittany Hoover  
Good morning, everyone. My name is Brittany Hoover, and I have been working in advising, let's see, since December of 2013 which is wild. I feel like it goes by really, really fast, specifically now working more with pre health students. So we have a very large pre health population that you have something like 30, 35% of our students, we guesstimate, are pre health. So work a lot with them, pre med, pre dent, pre farm, pre vet, PA, any, any pathway you can think of there, that's kind of my student population. I also help run that team, so I'm the assistant director. Help with event coordination and website updates and administration and searches and all that fun stuff. Yeah. And then just excited to be here. 

Gavin Farber  
Sarah. You're next. 

Sarah Imam  
Hi everyone. I'm Sarah Imam. I'm the Director of Health Sciences at the Citadel, which is the Military College of South Carolina. I too, am a pre Health Advisor. I started working in the field of education in 2015 so it's been 10 whole years, and I've been advising for nine. It was a very steep learning curve, because if you can tell from my accent, I wasn't entirely educated here, so I had to learn the American way, which was awesome. And. But it meant that I had to sort of dig quite deep into what I could do for my students and and, you know, as advisors, our goal is always to have successful students, so my role really was to learn and learn from the best. So it meant I joined NACADA, and I am also involved in nap, which is the National Association of advisors for the health professions. I took on leadership roles and just made sure that I was well educated so I could then do my best as an advisor.

Gavin Farber  
And finally, Chris,

Chris Kirchhof  
Hi everyone. My name is Chris Kirchhof. I work at the University of Pittsburgh in our Swanson School of Engineering as the director for undergraduate recruitment and transfer student services. I've been in this role and multiple roles around the engineering school for about 16 years now. When I started, I was working as an academic advisor for first year undeclared students within engineering. So that's how I got involved with some of our study abroad programs for first year students, and then in building that relationship across campus with different offices, I've been able to work with students in other capacities. So Gavin, thanks for inviting us on.

Gavin Farber  
It's my pleasure, and really the conversation will be going into five main areas. But again, as conversations go, we might go off topic friends listening today, but that's okay, because that's how friends can hire a chat. But I often really want to ask all of our folks who are doing this work, is, how did each of you first get involved in running or organizing a study abroad, or study abroad enforce and we cannot just jump in. I guess we'll start this break, and then we'll put you up on the spot.

Brittany Hoover  
So I think I first started thinking about it. We have in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UF a program that's called Beyond 120. So, beyond 120 is sort of experiential learning, professional development focused side. So we like our advising piece, and then this is kind of the extracurricular development piece. And so we have different lectures there who teach pre professional classes. We have internships, study abroad opportunities. A lot of good things going on there. But I believe it was pre covid, and we were attending a NAP conference, Sarah, so when you said NAP, I was like, this is actually perfect, good segue. So we were at a NAP conference, and myself and a friend who is now a lecturer for Beyond 120 and runs their global engagement program, we're chatting with someone from Atlantis. And so we were looking for opportunities for our students to do some shadowing, but specifically shadowing abroad, so that they could get that, you know, cultural humility and cultural competence and foreign language, and just learn about different people and, you know, their healthcare system and religion and government and all the all the wonderful things that can come from study abroad. And so we were really excited to do that. So I think that it got started in like 2017 2018 and then by the time we were going to run it, I think it ran for one year in 2019 and then when I was going to go by first year in 2020 we did all the work. We had our cohorts, we were ready to go. And then it was covid. So March of 2020, 20, we got shut down. Unfortunately, had to tell my students we're not going to be able to go this year. Stick around. I'll keep you on my wait list for next year. Next year rolled around. Unfortunately, couldn't go again in 2021 so my experience started officially in 2022 summer of 2022 we took a group abroad. I specifically took 12 students abroad to Pontevedra, Spain, and had a wonderful experience in that region. In that area, the folks are very, very kind and sweet. And basically we would take students abroad for four weeks. So it would be like our summer a or Summer B term, and then we would teach a class along with that. But since 2022 I have gone to back to Spain in 2023 so Ponte Vedra, Spain, again in 2023 last year we went to Mestre Venice, Italy, and then this past summer, I was in Zagreb Croatia. All amazing, wonderful experiences. I have taken a group of, typically, 10 to 12 students and then taught them in an online, sort of asynchronous class, besides that, to teach them, you know, about the healthcare systems and reflecting on their time they're shadowing. So yeah, that's how I got started.

Sarah Imam  
Okay, so my story is very similar. I my very first nap conference was in 2016 I literally discovered it online my school, although we had pre health advisors, my school is very small, and we have a faculty based advising program. So in other words, all of us advisors are, in fact, faculty. We don't have professional advisors. And as I was on my you. Of learning about American education experiences, I realized that for pre health specifically, it was really important to be in order to be competitive, was to show something other than just being academically strong. You needed to be able to demonstrate so many you know, different things. And what I learned was, after coming back from this conference, was that many of the graduate programs that students applied for, and it doesn't matter whether it's pre health or not, having an experience abroad, really made gave the students a competitive edge. So I was then determined to start planning programs as an advisor, which included an experiential learning opportunity, as well as being able to shadow and volunteer and doing research, all the other things that you would need to go on to become competitive for all of the health professions. So I, too, joined Atlantis, and I designed a program. So for me, I got involved with Atlantis. Now, Atlantis is a third party that really organizes everything, so you really don't have to do anything, but at the same time, it can run a little bit expensive as well. My program I designed in Lithuania, and I chose Lithuania, so I also teach healthcare systems. So I wanted my students to experience a different type of healthcare system. In my case, it would be universal healthcare as well as astronomy experience. And it worked out really well. So I did it for two years in 2018 and 2019 and again, I was changing up countries, and was then going to take my group to Hungary for 2020, February, 2020 I withdrew. I knew what was going to happen, so I was actually one of the first study abroad programs that withdrew for safety reasons, and then what happened was a little it's a little different. I guess I was heavily involved with study abroad and so I was assisting other schools designing study abroad programs. I think one of the key goals for me is making study abroad programs accessible, and that means making it affordable trying to get scholarships. So I found out about all the rules and regulations which would allow a student to be able to use either their student loans, any scholarship, their GI Bill. And I think that was kind of an important component for me and to assist other you know advisors with designing programs that would allow accessibility to these types of programs for all of their students. So just cutting a long story short, in 2021 again, we're all stuck with covid, and I, myself am a medical doctor, and I wanted to do more, and I checked many different countries it needed to be safe, because it was just going to be me and my daughter and I found, or like, I found that Kenya was a country that wasn't receiving a lot of assistance post covid. Did not receive vaccines. Well, most of Africa didn't at that time, and I just wanted to go and help, um, I found an organization that would assist me, and I basically just went there with my daughter, set up my own little camp in a church, and just started seeing patients. And I did this for three weeks, and it really kind of changed my world. I started thinking about maybe trying to do this at a bigger level, and having my students come, and that's what I did. So 2022, I started my own medical camp, and again, I'm jumping forward, we are now the largest free healthcare provider as a medical camp in all of Kenya. So this past summer, just came back. Two weeks ago, we served just under 14,000 patients in three weeks, and I'll go into details about what you're doing and what we can all do as advisors, but I've had an overwhelming response and support and the support of the Citadel, mainly. But I think what's really important as advisors, you can do whatever you want to do. I really do believe that, and it really does change the outcome of students. In the past three years, we have had a four fold increase of acceptances into the health professions. So I really do believe we've changed things around for my school.

Gavin Farber  
Chris, how did you get involved in civil work?

Chris Kirchhof  
So, I kind of fell into it a little bit. The University of Pittsburgh has had a program for the last 25 years for engineering. Students called plus three, and it is a two week program where students earn three credits through coursework with either an engineering or business faculty member. And what what they will do is, during the spring semester, they will learn about a certain area, like supply chain or smart systems, and then they'll go to a location to study. This was a pre existing program when I started as an academic advisor, and there was a an opening in 2011 for someone to help the faculty member in it was Vina del Mar Chile, so I got to go down there for two weeks. Had a great time, and told them that if you ever need anyone else you know, please let me know. So in being my relationship with the students and my relationship with the faculty, I've gotten to go on a number of these, both pre and post covid, to China, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and then this past May, we were in Seoul, South Korea. So I've gotten experience in a lot of different locations, which I think was very beneficial in terms of working with our student population, because these are, you know, just just finished freshmen. Many of them have not traveled internationally post covid, and a lot of them have never traveled internationally without their parents, so there was a lot of, I don't say hand holding, but a lot of kind of education of how the entire travel experience is going to be different, and how working with faculty, working at other universities, visiting companies, is was just going to be a different experience for them. And that mentorship has been a really rewarding experience.

Jill Paulson  
Yeah. So I'm kind of like Chris, I also kind of fell into this, this opportunity happily. Several years ago, there was a connection made between our director of our Gallagher Center, which is the International Studies Department at USC, with the International Studies director at a school in Germany that happened to be a teacher's college. They started having a conversation initially, I think back in 2019 we had a senior advisor in our office that was kind of working on getting some kind of a trip going. But then, like many of you mentioned, covid happened, and she ended up retiring and moving to Mexico, and, you know, just kind of a series of events took place. But the associate director at the time was like, I don't want to let this opportunity get lost, right? Like we had made this connection with the school in Germany, and so they wanted someone to pick that up. And I'm like, I'll help. It was definitely a job for me. I've never been to Europe at all, so to like, jump into a situation where I'm going to be leading a group of students to a European tour was a little intimidating, but also, I knew it wasn't an opportunity that comes around every day, so I was going to take it. So we were initially supposed to go the first time to Germany for two weeks in 2021 and we had everything in line. And around the time that we were at the stage of getting students come to commit to the program, covid was like kind of ramping back up in Europe, and then the war broke out between Ukraine and Russia, and so it just kind of made everyone nervous. It made our Midwest students who had not traveled again. You know, many of them have not traveled internationally, and it got them nervous. So unfortunately, we had to cancel our first run. So our first successful trip was in 2023 and it was amazing. Initially, our dean said, we'll see how it goes, right? You know? We'll see if it's successful. We'll see how the students respond. I don't think I was back in my office for more than a day before she was in there saying, we have to do this again, because she's been hearing from parents. She's been hearing from students about you know how wonderful the experience was for the students in schools. And that's what's unique about this particular trip, is through that partnership, we actually get to go into German school at K through 12 levels and meet with students, engage with teachers, engage with administration. So it's all tied to a comparative education course where they're comparing the German educational system to the US educational system. How is it similar? How is it different? And making all of those learning connections and networking connections. This last trip that we did in May 2025 we had two students, a German student and a US student, who are already making plans to connect their students at pen pal. So you know, it's going beyond just the students experience. But now, like trickling down into the students that they're going to teach in the classroom, so just those global learning experiences that they have. And then obviously we did a lot of, like cultural immersion kinds of experiences too. You know, we went to Dachau concentration camp in Munich, or near Munich, and just the global conversation of education and the teaching of history is so important in that context. This last time we spent two days in Paris, that was totally just frivolous fun. But I think that's important too on these kinds of trips to help them. You know, just have a little bit more exposure to culture and art and history in a different way as well.

Gavin Farber  
All of you have done fantastically different trips, but with common themes, which are really fantastic. My next question to everyone, I'm just gonna say, just yell out your answers all together around the time, but a lot of you mentioned working with a program called Atlantis or working with campus partners, something I'm always interested in, with any practitioner that might be standing up to lead these trips. Are, are you the practitioner that does the program promotion and relevant advising? Or is there someone on your campus or a third party that you're working with to kind of help get the students and what do those timelines look like? Just because so many advisors might be listening to saying, oh my gosh, how long in advance for a student need to, like, let me know that they want to do this program, whether they have to kind of buy things like that. So campus partnership. Anyone wants to start, jump on.

Chris Kirchhof  
I'll go ahead and start, just because for the listeners, it is July, and I have a meeting later today talking about next May. So these do take a long time to work through, and I think it's multiple entities that you're working with. With us at the University of Pittsburgh, we have our engineering faculty who will work with, okay, the topics or where would be ideal locations for that. And then it's our global office who does more than just like the Study Abroad Park, they'll work on, okay, how is this going to be, you know, academically feasible. What are going to what partners are across campus? Are we going to work with business or the School of Nursing? And then it comes into third party partners? We've used a number, I'm sure, like Atlantis, who are the kind of the people on the ground in those locations who are working with either businesses or universities, or we're using our own university contacts that you might know. So it really is a large scale partnership that a lot of students hopefully will never really understand what it is, because they'll work with us as far as advertising, and then they'll work with their academic advisor about signing up for the program, but there are a lot of components that are going to go back and forth, and I'll do my shout out to Alicia a lot, a who is at the University of Pittsburgh in our office, who is working with a network of a number of different partners on campus and off campus, and they really do a Herculean effort within this, because there are so many different little logistics in regards to living arrangements, transportation, insurance, vaccinations that really go in, go into it that, you know, thankfully I don't have to work with as much, but I know that at the end of the day, when the Students are on site, you know, I will have to have that training of what, what does a student need? As far as academic concerns, health concerns and such.

Jill Paulson  
I'll jump in next. And I would concur with Chris that it's definitely a very large team effort. And I, I can't not recognize my partner in this program. I'm actually a co leader, but Dr. Nate Bates on the USC campus, he's a German language professor at USC, is my partner in CO leading this trip. And as you can imagine, his input has been amazing. And you know, wouldn't be the same trip without his input. He's actually lived in Germany on and off for like graduate program and different experiences throughout his life. So brings a lot of experience to that our partnership with threber and Freiburg is also critical. They're the ones that actually help us get into the school in their area so that we can go in and visit and talk with students, and then at USC to our International Center, helps with a lot of the logistical things like Chris was mentioning, so like the insurance for the students and, you know, helping us get the housing set up and the in country. Transportation. The train system in Germany is lots of fun, but, you know, just some of those logistical things. But then Nate and I, you know, we're really boots on the ground, building our syllabus, building those learning experiences that we want them to have. We're scheduling all of those out of school experiences, I guess you could say, you know, in terms of like, what museums do we want them to be able to experience, or what other cultural experiences do we want them to have beyond just the educational comparison and make sure that they're getting that full experience. So I have found it really interesting too, that through this experience, like the School of Ed, the School of Modern foreign languages, the international office, like, we all have to work together to make this happen. And I think that's a really wonderful thing too, because sometimes, I think in a university system, we can get very siloed sometimes, and be very focused on like, you know, our own personal gain from experiences, but multiple departments on campus have gained because of this experience for students, and I think that that's when the real magic happens.

Sarah Imam  
So I'll, I'll go next. I absolutely agree with what's already been said Jill and Chris, it takes an entire village to get something like a study abroad program off the ground. So a couple of pointers for me. If you're an advisor and you're considering doing a study abroad program, what would be the very first thing to do? The first thing would be to check with the administration in your own school, you probably have a study abroad office or an office that is in charge, and you need to make sure that you have all approvals in place before you start. You know, planning, you have an idea, and you have to think about the outcomes. What? What are the goals of your program? Are they career specific? Are they experience specific. Maybe it might be research. So once you have an idea, you don't have to have all of the details fleshed out, but just make sure that your school's on board and they are proven, that you'll get the final approvals once you submit the proposal. Another important tip is federally, if you can offer six credit hours or more, your students can use funding. So in other words, their student loans could be used for the study abroad program or any other scholarship, you know, like I mentioned, GI Bill, or any other type of funding. Financial Aid will also be able to assist in the many students as well. So six credit hours plus is the key goal for me. I offer seven just to be on the safe side. So just to make sure. But you know, it's on the record that everybody you know, I just want accessibility. The next thing that you need to do, as Jill had mentioned, is make sure you have a syllabus of some sort, the syllabus part is important because it does need to be constructive learning. So even if it's a directed field experience and experience just directly having experiential hours that in itself, can be a three credit hour program as well. So you don't need to be overwhelmed with designing a syllabus. I think it comes quite naturally. And I think if you're starting off having third party organizers, and there are many of them. So I know Brittany and I have used Atlantis in the past, but I think in order to think of every single thing, it can become quite overwhelming. So I think having a third party vendor really does assist you. And once you've done it a few times, you might be able to venture out and try and do things on your own, or if you've got the support of your school that can actually think of everything, and you've got someone else going through, you know, all the logistics of transportation and the insurance and, you know, etc, etc, because there's so many small things to think of. So I think, you know, for me now, I'm doing it on my own, but I definitely appreciate the fact that I had Atlantis that really showed me what the ideal type of experience that I wanted would be like. Another thing that really is important is doing research in the area for safety. Not all areas in a town are exactly, you know, as safe as each other, and especially for me, because I'm going to Kenya, which is pretty unknown for most students and parents, so we really have to sort of show them what what safety measures we're taking in order for parents to entrust their little munchkins with us, right? So I think safety is very, very important for me. We did the same thing when I was taking the program to Lithuania. It doesn't matter where it is. I think that should be in your priority when designing a study abroad program as well. Well, and I hope that helps anyone that's thinking about study abroad programs. And I also want to add advisors, even if they're not currently teaching academically, they can design a study abroad program and take students abroad. This is important, and it's pretty much supported through, throughout every school as well. So every it's very possible to do.

Brittany Hoover  
Yeah, I'll sort of piggyback off what Sarah said number one, I loved how you like jumped in and were like, if you're looking to do a study abroad, to look at these things. So that was a great, great tidbit there. And then a little bit like deal. So when I first started, I had never been abroad either. And so here I am being the director of UF and Pontevedra, Spain, you know, clinical shadowing. But they, you know, kind of told me I was, I was okay, because I was a pre health advisor and ethically, and I had taught some classes, you know, you you can still give good feedback, right? So I think one of the the first things we did again was, like, outcomes. What are we trying to get out of this program? And so by partnering with Atlantis, again, it was to increase the opportunities for shadowing for our pre health students, because we just do have such a large population, as well as helping them learn about different health care systems. So whether it's universal or public health care system, how they treat patients differently there. So when we partnered with Atlantis, the goal was a four week program, 80 hours of clinical shadowing, 20 hours a week, where they would rotate different departments in the hospital so that they can hopefully get a couple that they preferred, but then maybe even a couple they'd never thought of right to just be open to urology or some of the less, you know, fun, maybe departments. And so we started by partnering with Atlantis, but then we also partner with our University of Florida International Center, so behind the scenes, as far as like running the application, submitting the student paperwork, helping with how they're going to finance the program, you know, applying for scholarships, making sure they're registered for the class, all a lot of that's done through the University of Florida International Center. So definitely leaning on partners, campus partners, third party vendors, I think, is super important. I had a really great mentor who had done it the year before me. So as far as like, steps and what we need to do, and paperwork and passports and vaccination. She was very, very helpful with, kind of getting all that in order. So I would say, Find a mentor, find a friend as well, who's maybe done it before, and lean on them a little bit. And then as far as timeline, yeah, definitely is like a full year timeline. We typically will post our application, kind of August, September. We'll run interviews, kind of September through early October, make our decisions with a few students on the backup waitlist. Once we've done that, then it's really getting them into the applications and the paperwork to go abroad, get registered, get their aid in order, and then we start having pre departure meetings with them, which I also think is super, super important to sort of set those expectations abroad about safety and what to bring, and, you know, expectations and ethical things about shadowing and working with patients, right? So we kind of set the goal early for that, and start those, kind of January, February, and run those through our final pre departure meeting, which I guess this year I went summer a, usually I go summer, summer B. So it was a little earlier this year we were finishing those up in April. So that's kind of the timeline for us when going abroad takes a full year to sort of get everything, application, interviews, meetings, enrollment in the class, then creating your syllabus and running the class online for summer, a while they're abroad. And then we, typically as faculty, we go with them the first week and make sure they've all arrived safely. We have their flight info. We get them into the housing with Atlantis, and then Atlantis has a local site manager. So, for example, Croatia had no idea, you know what I mean, I was like, oh gosh, I've been to Spain. I've been in Italy. I don't even know what to expect in Croatia. But luckily, you know, we had GB, and he was a local from Zagreb Croatia, you know, knew the language, had no problem getting us into our housing. So just very beneficial as well, to have those people who know a little bit more about the local culture, language, healthcare system, hospital as well. 

Gavin Farber  
So, what are the greatest lessons you've learned while abroad, leaving these trips, maybe lessons you find for your students that you could share with our listeners?

Jill Paulson  
I'll hop in on that one, just to kind of reiterate to you a little bit what you know Brittany and Chris and Sarah said too, just in terms of the planning early. But I'll also add you have to be prepared for plans to not go as planned and be okay with that. And I think sometimes that's one of the best lessons that some of our students take away from from this experience too, is how to roll with the punches when maybe a travel day doesn't go exactly as planned, or you can't get into the station where you're supposed to get on the next train, and how do you deal with some of those logistical issues? I think there's a lot of a lot of learning that goes outside of like the traditional academic Avenue on these kinds of trips, and just terms of you know, even just spending time with a group of people that you potentially don't know for 16 days in a row, and how do you build those relationships and still be respectful and cognizant of everyone's needs and respectful? I think it's so important as part of this journey, too. So I just, I feel like this is an opportunity that ed students at USC had not had for a very long time to have, like a study abroad trip that was specific to their program, that didn't end up making it take longer for them to graduate. But they get, they still have this opportunity, have this global engagement, learn a bit of cultural humility, learn a little bit of you know how they can learn from other cultures and other people of various ages. And we also had the opportunity to go into some college level seminars with the school that we partner with. So again, like you know, they were college students there, and our college students making connections that I think will will go on and proliferate in what they're able to do in their own classroom. So just those global experiences, I think are so valuable to expanding our ideas of equity and inclusion and all of those things that we're fighting for every day.

Brittany Hoover  
I could happen we're talking about favorite things, or favorite thing we've kind of learned while abroad? I would say my favorite thing about going abroad my students are what I've learned is reading their reflection journals every week. I don't know why, but I just love it, like I love hearing from like, the student voice of like, what they were doing every day, and they got to see a baby be born, or they got to see this cold surgery. And they just love, you know? So I love hearing that perspective. And then I think, as an advisor, you know, it gives me a different opportunity, right? So I get to know my students on a different level. When I'm abroad with them, and we're eating breakfast together, and we're going for walks and going for walks and going to museums and on city tours and things like that. So I love that I get to build maybe a little bit of a deeper relationship with these students professionally. And they, you know, have followers, but UF is so big, right? So we have like, 10, 12,000 pre health students, plus alumni, huge population. So I get some followers, I call them, who kind of come and see me and, you know, stay with me all four years, and I get to see them throughout their journey. But, you know, I've taught a class at us, and now going abroad, I have these cohorts of students who literally, like they bring me, and I'm gonna laugh because I'm gonna say this, but they bring me, like pictures of when we were in Italy together. And, you know, like little presents and, you know, just little things like that, and getting to see them on their journey. And you know, eventually, because I've gotten to know them so well, maybe writing them a strong letter of rec, which I don't always get to do if I don't know my students well. So I think that's sort of been my favorite part. Is really reading their reflections and getting them ready to write about it in their med school apps, and then just getting to know my students on a different level than sort of the day to day, advising conversations and seeing them kind of throughout their whole journey has been my favorite.

Chris Kirchhof  
I'll jump in. I whenever I talk with students about going abroad, I tell them that my favorite moments are those kind of fish out of water moments when the students realize that they are in a different place, and it might be either with food or you're on the subway and just something is different, and they have to kind of work their way through and talking with students about the idea that it you have to become comfortable being uncomfortable. You're going to be in situations where this is not a vacation, this is a class, this is an academic trip, and there are going to be situations that you need to persevere through. And I think generationally, I know I'm going to sound like the old man in the room, but the students need that. Students need that little bit of push and being able to discover themselves through this. So I've always enjoyed kind of talking with students about that, both before the trip and then, you know, afterwards, you know, Oh, can you believe you know XYZ happened? Those are really just, I think, important soft skills that students learn on top of everything else that they're learning academically. Because those are going to be things that they can talk about later on in, you know, job interviews or on professional interviews for graduate school, etc. Those, these are going to be the types of things that help to kind of add on to the breadth of their experience.

Sarah Imam  
Yeah, for me, something similar. I think seeing the students grow is the absolute best part to me. I feel like they return back home as completely different individuals from what they've learned. You know, for obviously, for me, my study abroad is a little bit more extreme. We're going to Kenya. We're working in the slums, where a lot of our patients, a lot of them have one meal every two days, you know. Or if they have one meal a day, you know, they're very, very grateful. And yet the patients come in and they're all very happy, and they're all so grateful for us to be there. So I think one of the biggest things you know that my teaching for the students is, is being able to respect everyone and nothing is wrong. It might be different, but it's not wrong. So the attitude of the students definitely changing. Is I have a lot of students that have never been on a commercial flight, let alone go abroad, and so the learning experience of having to navigate things now, where we're there, that we're with two faculty members that manage our group is 30 students, so it's pretty large, but we have two faculty members to assist with everything, but we want our students to deal with things on their own and be able to respect everyone, and be able to like just join in and appreciate the cultural things, whether you like it or not, to experience it and make an informed decision. I don't like it because I've tried something and I love that part of it. I don't necessarily love every single food item, etc, but I'm willing to try it and, you know, let's just see how it goes. And I think that's really part of the fun. And I think, you know, obviously, so Brittany and I are very specific, right? With pre health, but I think it applies to everywhere. That cultural component being able to deal with people from all different walks of life in your professional life is really important, and normally especially us, like where I'm in South Carolina, we meet very similar, like minded people our entire lives right there. So I think it's really important to be able to interact with people that might not be the same as you, and whether that takes place, you know, at home or much more easily abroad, that experience really, really changes the students minds. And I absolutely love it, and we can definitely see it like Brittany. We have reflective essays and case studies, and because they're medical case studies, but a simple thing like a little burn can become a huge infection, and this little child dies, and this is something that would be unheard of in America, and being able to understand why this happened, and the fact that, you know, there are plenty of people that don't have, you know, insurance or access, easy access to health care in America, whether it's rural or lack of insurance, for multiple multitude of reasons, but getting a thorough understanding, because a lot of my students have, you know, they sort of think that, well, if you don't have something, maybe you should work harder and try and get her. And then they see people that are just born into something, and it's not their fault at all, and how privileged we are, just by living in America, just to have running water or be having food whenever we want, it's a privilege. And so I think one of the other things that I see with my students is gratitude. They suddenly become grateful. And I've had parents write to me and said, I don't know what I don't know what you did, but he's actually respecting his little brother now and not beating him up every day or something like that, you know, just so he's a little bit more loving. So to me, that's the biggest thing. Is the growth of students. And I It doesn't matter what program they're going to do just by going abroad and not on vacation and on a resort, but having to navigate things themselves really allows students to grow and just makes them better human beings.

Gavin Farber  
One thing I also want to commend all four of you that you're doing is we're friends, so we have connected through various needs, but your social medias are phenomenal. Sarah's posting videos that the Citadel puts on their website. Jill's putting on her face. Like, the journey throughout Europe. Brit's been putting on the Italian, the Spanish, the Croatian. Chris is sending me pictures like, hey, there's a snail face mask in Korea. Should we try it? Like, again? Like, weird text messages I'll be getting about a food or something, because he knows I'm a picky eater and I like beauty, and I think, and I told him, like, cobia is the center of face cream and like, and just where you're going in these places. Like, Sarah, I cry watching some of your videos because it's so like, you interview a woman who just needed her knee. Like, that's the emotion underneath. Just release the pressure. And like, she just said, Oh, I feel great. Like you interviewed her, like 45 minutes or an hour later, and like she could walk. 

Sarah Imam  
She came in limping, and she left walking. And what's incredible is, a lot of the patients, you know, they don't have much. They're living in the slums. She came in the next day with she cooked rotis for us as a thank you, which is a huge big deal. Just saying thank you from the bottom of her heart. And my students are, you know, I feel like my students really, really learn from that, like the whole idea of gratitude is huge and, you know, and it doesn't matter what country you go to learn the good and the bad, right? And I feel like all of your students are probably coming back grateful for the things that they have no matter what country they've gone to, right? I think I'll have to add all of you to my social media too.

Gavin Farber  
Oh, yeah. Wow. Couple more questions, but I have a random one where if you could plan the dream location, like, where is your location you'd like to go to? Obviously, there's lots of different places we've seen across Africa and Europe and Asia, where are dream locations we'd love to do the trip one day too. If you could put it out into the ethos and someone who had the right power to say, yes, you're doing it in 2026 you're doing it in 2027 with the way things are planning year and a half in advance.

Brittany Hoover  
I would want to go to Ireland or Scotland. But selfishly, that's just an area that I would like to go to that's missing, I don't know, as far as, like, comparison for healthcare systems and things like that. I think, you know, Spain, Italy, are very popular locations with students. I feel like, just kind of, you know, worldwide, those are very popular locations. I think this year with having Croatia, was a little nervous, because I was like, I feel like students don't know as much about Croatia. Are they going to want to apply? Are they going to want going to want to go? What's the language barrier? You're going to be like? Because I feel like I have a lot more students who speak Spanish or from Florida, or who have a background in Italian, or I like, I have a background in Spanish. So I feel like I can, I can communicate well enough in Italian where I can get by. You know what I mean? But I was like, Croatia. You want me to go to Croatia? I was like, I have no idea, you know what I mean. I have no idea where I'm going or what we're doing. And so I would say for my students, if I wasn't being selfish for myself, somewhere with, you know, a good enough, like, where they can communicate well enough to sort of get around, you know what I mean, and have those conversations with doctors and healthcare professionals and patients, or even if the, you know, the healthcare professionals are translating and sort of letting them know what's going on somewhere with an area that they can understand. I guess Croatia was actually, I will say it was wonderful. I was very pleasantly surprised that I had less of a language barrier in Croatia than I did in Italy, which I thought was so interesting. And lots and lots of of people I feel like are speaking English. And, you know, that's kind of what I encourage my students. I'm like, you could have any special skill or superpower, learn another language, like, if you take anything away from me this trip, learn Spanish, learn French, learn, you know, Croatia, whatever, whatever it might be. But to me, that's such a great skill to have. And so, yeah, that's my little simple.

Jill Paulson  
I'm going to jump in on what Brittany was saying too about the whole language thing, because this is a little off topic, Gavin. I will, I will answer your question too. But one of the favorite schools our students went to was actually the lower elementary school up in the Black Forest, where a lot of those students did not know English, right? So this was probably the school where there was the least ability for our students to be able to communicate with the students there. Now there were a few. There were some students who knew English. Maybe they spoke that as a second language at home, but by and large, most of the children did not know English yet. So it was just really interesting to see how they found these other ways to communicate with those kids, whether it was through music or gestures or, you know, they did, you know, find some, a couple of the students that didn't know English pretty well, and they would act as interpreters and kind of help have this group conversation. And that ended up, interestingly, I think they enjoyed all the school experiences, but that one was definitely a favorite for a lot of them. And it was just interesting because it was in terms of communication the biggest stretch, right? Like it was, it was a place where they were stretched the most to find ways to communicate, find ways to connect with those kids, but it was such a fun experience. So as far as the dream location, the next place that I don't think I'll be doing, but I'm hoping to get this going in 2027 we'd like to do a very similar style of trip with the comparative education but to Finland, we have a couple of administrators at USC who were able to to visit there last summer, and one of them happens to me, my supervisor. So I'm very much in her ear right now. I'm like, I'll help you. I'll help you get it going. But I think it would be really great to potentially get a couple other countries with also interesting or strong educational systems, and get those trips going out of rotation, so that every year or every couple of years, these students could go on similar trips, but to different countries, and have that more broader comparison, which I think would be wonderful. Nate and I are planning our next trip already, whether it happens in 27 or 29 we'll see, but Freiburg will always be our home. We all have fallen in love with Freiburg, Germany, and we love the schools that we get to visit there, but we always try to switch up some of the extra places that we go. So like the day trips, or the, you know, those kinds of things. The first time we did a day trip to battle Switzerland and Strasburg, France. This time we did a day trip to Salzburg, Austria and Paris, France for a few days. Next time. And like you, Brittany, this choice might be a little selfish, but I think we're going to try and go to the Czech Republic, because that is my family heritage. So or what do they call it now? Czech Czechia, it changes all the time, but hopefully Prague and then maybe Berlin, which we have not done in Germany yet. So always kind of trying to keep it fresh, too a little bit for the students, so that they're getting different experience.

Sarah Imam  
I guess I'll jump in. So for me, because it's healthcare based, I would love for my students to see a really great healthcare system. Unfortunately, most of those countries tend to be a little bit expensive, so ideally, I would love Finland, Sweden, Norway. I did try and do a budget for such a program, and it was almost double what my students are paying right now. But, but I think it would be really interesting learning um, from a healthcare system that provides for everyone in the country, but has government readiness and has really highly trained medical professionals. And more importantly, um, patient satisfaction is extremely high. We have some of the happiest people on earth living in Scandinavian countries. So I would love that. My other ideal country would be Taiwan, the way Taiwan responded during covid 19 and again, it has universal health care, some of the best trained professionals and extremely advanced medical care as well. So those are some of the countries, but there, I feel like logistically, it might not be possible, or if it did, it would have to be for a smaller group. But I say never. Say Never, right? We don't know, unless we try and plan for it, and maybe I don't think I would ever try and replace what I have in Kenya, that this would be in addition to and then what I mean, I'm doing my dream Study Abroad already. It really is a dream come true, and it's only made possible. So there's two parts of it. We have the study abroad, but I actually have a medical camp that is funded by donations. And I'm very like honored, and I count my blessings every day to have donors that give enough for me to be able to set up a medical camp. So when I think about it, I think I'm I'm doing my dream job just by being able to do that study abroad, and I'm hoping to be able to expand it. So right now, we take one or two students that aren't from the Citadel, but we're trying to open up another whole wing, which would allow students from other schools to be able to come we are the only institute that has their own medical camp. We don't join forces. We literally are renting tents and hiring people ourselves. It's designed entirely by by the Citadel. So I think being able to share that opportunity with other students in different schools, I think would be a blessing as well. I'm just very happy with how things are going. I'll put it that way.

Chris Kirchhof  
And Gavin, I'll take a different approach in with this, because when you say like dream locations, I'm thinking to myself, places that I would want to go on vacation. So I made a list and just threw that out. I don't want to go there with students. I want to go there on vacation myself. But in terms of engineering students, I think so much of what they do is computer based, is technology based. I would really love to have some sort of program where students went to something like Egypt or to Machu Picchu, and kind of understood, how did people do this before computers? How did people, you know, build, build structures, build societies, build, you know, infrastructure before, before the kind of the gifts that they have right now. So I think those types of areas, I think would be really interesting for a student now. They would be probably super expensive, and who knows how many students would sign up. But I think those types of things would be really interesting to help give, like a full, full picture appreciation for the for the job that they're doing.

Gavin Farber  
I was so excited to hear Scandinavia, because I'm reading a book on Scandinavian higher right now. I do have Jill connection with the money for advising Sarah, a former nakhana president, was teaching in Taiwan. He's now back in the States, but he was there for a little while. So it's good to hear all these countries. Because it's good to kind of introduce people to like, who we know to maximize. But I will tell you, Finland is a very interesting country, because the advisors I met from Finland, or you can explain that, because it gets so much depth in there, might get stuck around, like, one or two me, like, they have to do a lot more student engagement with the students, like, get them through their like, afternoon classes, and they have such a cool philosophy of life, just because their way of life is so much healthier, whether it's Denmark, Norway or Denmark even Iceland. And as Sarah talked about, the healthcare systems are so great, it's so much different. So their way of life is so interesting to read about. It's the high gay philosophy and all that. So I'm happy to hear that someone's on the table at the University of South Dakota, and I really hope Sarah, you can get a group of students up to Scandinavia, because it'll be really cool. It's expensive, but yeah, my last question really is just, just your your advice to give anyone out there listening who might be like, this is such a great episode. I want to do this. What's like your nuggets of wisdom you'd love to give people to how to begin this process. If they're just at the poof, I have an idea.

Jill Paulson  
I'll jump in on that one. Gavin, you know, my, my first word of advice would be, do it right. I think, you know, I had that initial sense of trepidation when I was given the opportunities, like, Oh, can I do this? And I don't regret it for a minute, like, has there been stressful moments? Absolutely, there's stressful moments in the planning. There can be stressful moments on the trip. And that that leads to my second big tip is advice, if you can have a partner or a co leader to go with you, I think that's huge, because you can't as a leader, you can't be 100% on all the time, like, it's just not visible when you're leading a group of, you know, 10 to 20 students in a foreign country, and you're going through all of this too, right? You know, and that's why I think, you know, having Nate was just a life, send to me, or, you know, God sent to me because, you know, we were often able to tag team, you know, in terms of when issues or problems or student conflicts might come up, we could tag team a little bit. And I think having a great partner to work through all those planning elements and to work through all the things that might happen on the ground, just make it so much easier, and we've become friends too. Like, that's the other element of it is, like, I've gained a friend out of this experience, from a department that I probably never would have engaged with otherwise. And I really feel like I've gained a lot from that experience as well.

Chris Kirchhof  
I'll throw it out there, if someone is interested in getting involved in these types of programs, one is going to be, obviously, find the partners on your campus and make those connections and really be persistent with your interest and interest in either developing a program or hopping on To support already existing programs. I think one thing that also advisors can bring to the table, especially if you're not a teaching faculty member, if you're just an advisor working with students, and that not just but if you're if you're working primarily with with undergraduates or graduate students, I think showing what the return on investment is going to be for the study abroad is going to be important. Um, not only is it that academic piece, but also, how can you, what can you bring to the table, as far as helping students to how to put this on a resume, or how to build this into a LinkedIn profile, or getting a LinkedIn profile ahead of time, so that when they go to schools or companies, they're building contact networks, because this is something that they're going to be asked about over and over and over again. So sort of those, what can you bring to the table if maybe you are not an expert in that one particular area or location, and just kind of helping out with that, I think is would be important.

Sarah Imam  
Work backwards. Look at your outcomes. Look at what the whys Why do you want to do this program? What's in it for students? Why would a student want to do it? So once you figure out the outcomes, it's easier to prove your case, and at first, you might be denied. But if you persist, most people will understand why this program might be important for the students and for the school, and if it leads to student success, it's even more important. So whatever it may be, whether it's education, as in teaching, education, languages, engineering, healthcare, the. Why part, the why component, I think, is very important. And then you can start with you on the logistics.

Brittany Hoover  
Yeah, those were all all great answers. I'll just sort of echo, I think, with us too. It was kind of like, what, what are we missing for our students? You know what I mean? Like, what is something that's kind of a need for our students? And it was the more healthcare experience, more, you know, good quality shadowing experience learning about different cultures. And so we sort of started with that, and kind of worked backwards, and then created the online class like, what are, what are we trying to get them to think about here? We want them to journal. We want them to learn how to how to write about this in their med school applications. We want them to compare the healthcare systems learn about different cultures, you know. So I think we started there. And then again, you know, leaning on partners. University of Florida, International Center has been doing study abroad programs forever, so we kind of leaned in with them and had meetings, you know, and then Atlantis and their experience, you know, in hospital systems abroad. So really, just again, not reinventing the wheel, talking to other faculty or international center on campus and seeing what's already out there, what's possible, maybe what's not, and then just diving in from there. But, yeah, don't be afraid to even, you know, if you can, if you can dream it, you can do it. So, you know, come up, come up with those ideas, and then see how far you can take it.

Gavin Farber  
I think you ended on a really phenomenal note. Brittany, again, if you can dream it, you can build it. I love that. Think that's gonna be the quote of this session. Why I just want to thank Jill, Brittany, Sarah and Chris, for joining us today on this episode of adventures in advising. I really do hope that our listeners get inspired to have their students think more globally as citizens and really dream of their abilities to maybe skip outside where they currently are, Dream class, maybe studying abroad or traveling a little bit differently, and get new perspective and again, coming back with that humble gratitude that we're seeing, that a lot of our students are seeing, that when they See somewhere that's different from what they're used to. It changes the entire life, perspective, power.