News & Events
Summer study abroad? Not just a holiday -- Employers need you!
What does it mean to do a study abroad program as part of your UH degree? Everything.
A study abroad experience can offer students an opportunity to grow as persons, to mature, or to learn how to navigate within another culture.
Employers are looking for students who have experience in learning about another culture. It is a global business world. Learning how to navigate the bus/metro system in Rome or in Strasbourg or in Paris is a simple, but vital asset in learning about how to do business in another country.
Whether you are an Economics, Political Science, History, Classics, Business or Liberal Studies major, you need to broaden your horizons, to set yourself apart from all the other applicants for the jobs that you will seek after you graduate from college. Jobs are out there, whether in the petrochemical field, the financial industry, tourism, or education fields. Study abroad is a jewel in the crown of job applicants.
In our increasingly global economy, proficiency in a language other than English is a great boost to a college graduate’s employment prospects. Some of the study abroad programs led by faculty in the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences are intensive language courses in the mother tongues of global commerce, including Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese.
With or without a foreign language component, study abroad programs are excellent education experiences that you can also use to market yourself on the job scene. Just make sure you take good notes while you are overseas. You want to be able to demonstrate on your resume how the program helped you to mature and become more attentive to cultural differences.
While it's true that many study abroad programs are of the "If this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium" category, those that give you an intense cultural experience, even if it's only two weeks, should be your preference. UH offers more and more great study abroad experiences that are designed to give you a great foreign language and cultural experience.
Below is a list of the international seminars led by CLASS faculty that provide students with an academically rigorous and culturally enriching learning experience:
- Bahia, Brazil: May 10 – June 10, organized by the Department of Hispanic Studies
- Angers, France: May 22 – June 23, organized by the Department of Modern and Classical Languages
- Cádiz, Spain: June 2 – 28, organized by the Department of Hispanic Studies
- Rome, Italy: June 2 – July 8, organized by the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies
- Salamanca, Spain: July 2 – August 3, organized by the Department of Hispanic Studies
- Havana, Cuba: July 14 – 24, organized by the Department of History
- Accra, Ghana: July 19 – August 5, organized by the African American Studies Program
Tom Behr, director of the Liberal Studies Program in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies and faculty leader of this summer’s study abroad program in Rome.