Connect Our World, through Students!

Bravo! to NAFSA today in the launching of their new campaign which is aimed at "Connecting Our World" through collegiate study abroad. This new campaign is called Students Connecting Our World and is a public education and engagement campaign. Providing students with the drive and impetus to go abroad and not only engage with the world around them, but also fuel their career ambitions.

Programs like these help the US Center's national campaign to increase (in fact, double!) the number of citizen diplomats by the year 2020. International education paired with the importance of the younger generation's role in citizen diplomacy is an important focus of the US Center. Therefore, a campaign focused on providing college students the information and tools is an efficient way to helping foster global citizenship at the college level.

Here is some more information about how students can take advantage of NAFSA's resources.

What types of resources do you provide students who want to study abroad?

On the Students Connecting Our World Facebook page, we plan on sharing resources such as news articles, blog posts, and tip sheets from a variety of sources to spark discussions about how to make study abroad affordable and a reality for more students, how to have a more meaningful experience abroad, how to effectively include study abroad on your resume and in job interviews, and why studying abroad is so important in today's world. We know students will share their own insights and suggestions, too, like travel tips and fun stories, and ask each other questions. In the coming months, we will also host live chats with students who have recently studied abroad. I studied abroad in college, and I know I love to tell my stories, just like other study abroad alumni do, and those stories and experiences contain great nuggets of advice that could be helpful in reaching students who are curious about study abroad and aren't sure how to make it a reality for themselves. On the Connecting Our World website, in the section for students, we have a library of resources that is divided into three sections: (1) Before You Go, (2) While You Are Abroad, and (3) When You Come Home. It's a compilation of resources from a variety of sources, including NAFSA, and while it's not a comprehensive collection, we expect it to grow over time as students and organizations share more resources with us. We also want to make sure students don't forget their most important resource – their study abroad advisors on campus – who can answer all of their burning questions about program deadlines, visa requirements, and much more.

How do you see this program helping to accomplish the USCCD's goal of doubling the number of citizen diplomats by 2020?

We've heard it countless times: students who go abroad to learn during their college careers and come back transformed, with a new perspective on and understanding of the world, energized and motivated for a lifetime of engagement with other cultures and places. These students bring those experiences back to their home communities, they seek out connections with the world and encourage others to be more globally engaged. Both by encouraging many more students to study abroad and by facilitating the ripple-effect impact that study abroad returnees can have, Students Connecting Our World is helping meet the USCCD goal, which NAFSA shares. Students Connecting Our World is helping to create new generations of citizen diplomats.

Later this month we will be launching our 2011 Student Diplomat Video Contest. We will be asking students to show what lessons they learned while studying abroad and how they connected with other people and cultures in a meaningful way in a short video. Students should stay tuned to Students Connecting Our World on Facebook for more details about the rules and the grand prize.

Students can interact with eachother on the Students Connecting Our World facebook page. What's more is the advocacy opportunities offered down the road, such as a student diplomat video contest!

If you are an organization that deals with higher international education, visit the facebook page and "like" it to start engaging with others on the site.

Posted Tuesday, September 6, 2011