Making the World a Smaller Place
The International Symposium at Beloit College
Photo courtesy of beloit college, ©Chuck Savage
Click here to read about the Founding of the Symposium
By Rachel Berzon
It’s 9:00 a.m. on a chilly November morning at a small, liberal arts college in Wisconsin. Tired students trudge toward the academic buildings from the warmth of their dorms, coffee in hand, ready to attend lectures, even though there are no classes today.
Each November, students at Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., come to a day-long symposium to celebrate students’ insights from their study abroad experiences and international research. This year’s seventh International Symposium included 45 student presenters giving 43 presentations on topics from all areas of study at Beloit College.
Many of the Symposium presenters have just returned from a term or year abroad and the International Symposium helps these returning students with the process of re-entry. Students presenting at the November 2008 Symposium said that sharing their international experiences with the campus community helped them to digest what they saw and did abroad. By teaching their peers and mentors what they learned abroad, the presenters give back to the campus community and open new conversations. The International Symposium helps participants, as well as audience members, firmly tie study abroad experiences into Beloit College’s curriculum.
“My study abroad experience was definitely anything but typical,” says senior Kyle Lipinski, a health and society major who spent two semesters abroad, one at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and the other traveling to China, India, South Africa, and Sweden. She had many opportunities to see, do, and learn. “My program on comparative public health opened my eyes to all kinds of things that I’d never thought about or learned about,” Lipinski says. She began to see that local context affects the success of public health programs. “Looking at international public health from the perspective of the people receiving the interventions helped me understand that curing someone’s disease doesn’t mean he or she will be healthy in the long run,” Lipinski says.
Returning to the United States, Lipinski shifted her focus to domestic public health concerns, interning that summer with the Red Cliff Tribe reservation in northern Wisconsin to design a cardiovascular health program. “I’m still idealistic even though my bubble was popped from under me,” she says. “When I left my program, I was really overwhelmed by the fact that there is so much going on besides just health. My internship over the summer restored my faith in public health and my ability to make change as an individual on a small level. Small steps are significant.”
Lipinski used the International Symposium to collect her thoughts and share what she had learned. She had stories to tell and a year’s worth of insights to add to her studies but found it difficult to answer the all-too-common question, “How was it?” For Lipinski, the International Symposium was the solution. “It gives you 20 minutes to talk about your experiences, and everyone who comes wants to listen,” she says. Since her presentation in November, Lipinski has spoken about her experiences with people who previously had been strangers. “You’re an educational avenue for someone else,” she says.
What was it like to present to an audience consisting of both friends and strangers? “The president [of Beloit College] was at my symposium, which can be an intimidating thing,” Lipinski says. “However, you just need to remember that what you learned is valuable and that people want to hear about it.”
Environmental Science major Chris Ruder also spent a year abroad and delivered two presentations. His morning talk discussed the pressure put on the Camphill Community Farm in England to modernize. “I looked at environmental changes and responses to the looming [environmental] crisis,” Ruder says. “Presenting it gave me a chance to reflect on my study abroad experience and try and articulate what I learned there.” In the afternoon, Ruder discussed sustainable development and alternative communities in India, a topic related to the religious studies he has been pursuing. “My presentation was very connected to what I’ve been studying at Beloit and aimed to engage with the post-colonial critique,” he says.
Ruder says designing a talk for his peers that highlighted the most important elements of his studies overseas was demanding but rewarding. “There are so many other things that I could have discussed from my time in England or in India. Picking out what you and the audience are going to learn the most from is a really valuable, challenging process,” Ruder says. “That’s the most exciting thing, that it’s self-motivated, self-directed learning.”
Now a senior at Beloit, Holly Pham has been immersing herself in international education for the past three years. A native of Vietnam, Pham used the International Symposium to teach U.S. students about her homeland. She discussed Vietnam’s integration into the global economy. She knew much about the subject because she had summer internships in Vietnam with an American venture-capital fund and an organization for Vietnamese students studying in the United States. Pham’s presentation also connected her college major in economics and management to her background. “The International Symposium served as a case study to comprehend my formal education. Experiential learning allows you to unpack levels of gradation that academic theories alone cannot explain,” she says, adding how preparing for the symposium became a learning process of its own. “To effectively communicate with others about your experiences and research and engage the audience takes a lot of effort. For me, those efforts included brainstorming with professors and a lot of idea-bouncing with friends.”
Modern Languages major Margaret Caneff studied in Senegal and has the film footage to prove it. Like Lipinski, upon returning to the United States, Caneff says, “There are only certain times and places that people care to listen to your experiences because they can’t picture where you’ve been and what you’ve done. The International Symposium allows people who are coming back to share what they’ve learned.” Caneff’s presentation was not a talk; instead she showed a documentary she had made with a local student. As part of Beloit College’s program in Senegal, the two made a film that explored a social issue in Dakar. The result was a documentary, named Washerwomen of Dakar, Senegal, about the women who leave rural villages in search of a better life.
The International Symposium provided Caneff with the perfect opportunity to share her project. “I made something while I was abroad that I wanted to share with people here,” she says. “I’d never made anything like that before.”
Study abroad is fundamentally about “making the world a smaller place,” Caneff says. And, through the International Symposium, students at Beloit College discuss the new insights they gained abroad with the campus community. In doing so, they bring the rest of the world a bit closer to a small college in Wisconsin.
Rachel Berzon earned a B.A. in history from Beloit College in May 2008. She studied in Barcelona her junior year and worked as a Beloit College International Education intern until December 2008.