European Studies Events

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[PAST EVENT] Marketing your Study Abroad Experience

September 20, 2012
4pm - 6pm
Location
Reves Center for International Studies, Reves Room
200 S Boundary St
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location
The Global Education at the Reves Center will offer a special program just for you on Thursday, September 20 from 4 -6 pm in the Reves Room. This program will be in two parts. From 4-5 pm, Wendy Webb-Robers, Associate Director of the Career Center will give a presentation on how to market you study abroad experience to future employers or graduate schools. Can your study abroad experience help you get an internship, job or into graduate school? You bet, IF you know how to write and talk about it! This will be a working session - bring a fully charged lap top.

The impression many recruiters often gain when interviewing students is that their study abroad experience was an "academic tour" with little substance. Students often talk about it as a travel log and do not highlight the skills and competencies they gained that will be valuable to the employer or graduate school. Plan to attend this presentation and learn ways to communicate how YOUR study abroad experience gave you the skills to:

*Interact with people with different interests, values, or perspectives
*Understand cultural differences
*Adapt to situations of change
*Ability to work independently
*Undertake tasks that are unfamiliar
*dentify new problems/solutions to problems


After the presentation, from approximately 5-6 or 6:30 you will be able to meet with others who have just returned from abroad. Reliving your adventures and meeting new people with whom you have a lot in common is important in readjusting to campus life. You will find that it is normal that you may be having difficulty dealing with issues such as overwhelming coursework, feeling that you don't fit in anymore, longing for the independence you had living on your own, lack of exciting things to do in Williamsburg, etc. Often reverse "culture shock" that you feel coming home is worse than ?cultural shock" when you went abroad. So, plan to attend and tell your stories to others who will NOT be sick of hearing about your experiences, like your friends, family and roommates may be!
Contact

Debi Debacco, dvdeba@wm.edu