Global Education in Universities
Universities supposedly give us a global education. They encourage us to take foreign languages and study abroad. They encourage us to study the histories and political systems of foreign countries. But that is how far their global education goes. Universities supposedly prepare us for real life in a world of globalization. I appreciate their efforts but the sad truth is that they don’t.
At one point of our lives, each one of us will work with someone from a different country. Some of us will live and work in a foreign country. Universities should prepare us for this instead of wasting our time with pointless classes and partial programs.
We take theology classes to find inner peace, but many millennials still walk around confused or atheist, not knowing the differences between major religions or appreciating them. We take ethics classes and study Aristotle, Plato, and Kant without recognizing that ethics is influenced by culture. We waste our time studying biological processes and physical laws that we forget as soon as our final exams are over instead of investing our time in something that would be more helpful for our future careers in a global environment.
We study foreign languages and literature but we rarely have the opportunity to take a class in Business Chinese or Business Italian. An engineering or economics student almost never takes a class in Intercultural or Cross-cultural Communications and learns what the social and communication norms are in different societies. We are taught complex theories and ideologies to supposedly apply to our future careers, but we don’t even know how to apply for a job in a foreign country.
We don’t know how to write a CV in the European format. Who would think that one has to put a picture and a date of birth? We don’t even know how to hand a business card in Japan. We don’t know how to greet people in Indonesia. We don’t know that the American hand sign for OK means zero in Germany. We don’t know that the American hand sign for one actually means two in many southern European countries.
How are we supposed to know all this information and even more? Maybe you would say “google it; you are the digital natives.” I don’t pay tens of thousands of dollars every year to google things. I don’t pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn things on my well-tested trial-and-error method, because some errors are too big and too costly. I don’t want universities to teach us everything. But they should provide us with the basics to successfully adapt to different cultures and societies and collaborate with people from different countries. They should provide us with the basics to successfully start a career in a foreign country. They should provide us with the basics to do business with people from around the world. That is what I pay tens of thousands of dollars for every year.
What do you pay tuition fees for?
This is actually a very interesting subject. I never really took any sort of global cultures/communications class, mainly because I never had to. I feel like the whole idea is so broad — I mean, how do you even narrow down which cultures to talk about — which means it's harder to create a class about such a thing, because you won't even scratch the surface in a semester. Maybe “global cultures education” (or something) would become an entirely different major. Or maybe it could be offered post-graduation, once you have a job, and you would be able to focus on learning the things that are pertinent to the job you will be doing?
Congrats, Addy. You've uncovered that formal university education is over-priced and over-rated.
When I was a sophomore in college I took a class called Intercultural Communications — in Europe no less! — and, to be honest, it's hard to overstate how much of a waste of time it was. Part of this was the fault of the instructor, who was disengaged and unclear. However, our textbook was “Riding the Waves of Culture” by Fons Trompenaars, which I'm led to believe is one of the leading books in the subject. The covered topics were so amorphous that the book was only capable of speaking in generalities, and for a primer on doing business with people with other cultures, it was rife with stereotypes.
While I think I understand where you are coming from, it's hard for me to completely agree with you, given my experiences. I definitely can't get on board with the idea that studying cross-cultural communications is more important than studying, say, physics and biology, subjects whose uses are as obvious as they are essential. And while we might find some insight by considering how the beliefs of Plato and Kant were influenced by their cultures, isn't it more important to evaluate whether their beliefs are correct?
I don't think cultural competence is the kind of thing that a curriculum can impart. I think it develops as a consequence of being open-minded, well-traveled, and well-read. The cultures of the world are too numerous and too vast to explain without resorting to hasty generalizations. When the time comes to navigate a foreign culture, nothing you learn by rote in the classroom will adequately prepare you; you will only learn by doing it.
Wow so true! I've found that most of my international knowledge has come from hanging out with international students. Other than that, we aren't prepped well, you're right. It's funny, I didn't even think of my education as deficient until you brought it up…
Angela, I agree that it is a very broad subject, but it is extremely important and we shouldn't disregard it just because it is too broad and we don't know how exactly to handle it. I do agree that a semester is not enough and it will be better if students study the subject for a year, but also have a greater integration of cultural/global education in all or almost all subjects. Such a topic can easily be integrated into marketing, PR, advertising, journalism, literature, humanities, sociology, psychology, etc. Talking about specific differences between cultures can also be integrated in engineering and business classes in one way or another.
I took an Intercultural Communication class my sophomore year and it was a great experience and I learned a lot, but a semester is definitely not enough. I can say that most of what I know about other cultures is from travelling and meeting people. For the 3.5 years I've spent in the USA I've shared an apartment with people from Japan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam, St. Vincent, Spain, Peru, Nigeria and the USA, of course. I was lucky enough to live in “Global Village” – a program that allows students from around the world to live together and engage in cross-cultural activities. It was an amazing experience! With that said, if universities do not want to change their curriculum, they might provide more programs like this where students can engage in informal education.
Adam, I agree that formal education in its current state is over-priced. If it was more effective, I would change my mind.
I am not sure if it is over-rated. On one hand, it doesn't give us enough opportunities to gain real skills and develop our talents. On the other hand, a university degree is still considered as one of the few ways, especially for young people, to guarantee qualification. Unfortunately, our society hasn't realized the fact that a person without a college degree can be talented, smart, intelligent, skilled and absolutely capable of doing the same job as someone with a degree.
Do not get me wrong. I value college education and education in general. However, I think it can be much better!
Mike,
I took a class with the same title my sophomore year and, as I told Angela, it was a great experience and it opened my eyes for many things. One of the most important things I learned from that class was why my best friend was always late. And no, the answer is not because she is from the West Indies, but because of the way she and her culture sees the concept of time as it relates to life. Are there West Indians who are always on time? Yes, because they’ve adapted to the different ways others see time. Of course, a lot of what is in cross-cultural communication books is based on stereotypes, but these are stereotypes produced by research, which is different from the stereotypes we use in everyday life. We as intelligent human beings should know that not all individuals in a culture fit every single stereotype of that culture.
It is true that colleges and universities can't teach us everything in a formal setting, but they can provide us opportunities for informal education. The first two year of my college career I spent in WA and my dorm was full of international students. When I moved to Milwaukee, I participated in “Global Village”, a program that allows students from around the world to live together and engage in cross-cultural activities. I can't explain how beneficial these experiences have been. I've traveled a lot, but it can't compare to actually living with people from around the world. Not to mention that when we travel to foreign countries we rarely engage with natives on a deeper level nor do we try to understand and learn their cultures. Most of the time we are just tourists doing touristy things. Yes, traveling is important, but it depends what you make out of it.
I hope I haven't caused any cognitive dissonance
Plus at least you have learned something. Many people do not have the opportunity to meet individuals from around the world.
The point you bring up about learning about other cultures through traveling — I think that's the main reason a lot of school don't require these kinds of courses. Like Adam said, in some respects, formal schooling is over-priced and over-rated. I'm not dissing my college education at all, and I would never have chosen not to go, but I'm also of the mindset that some things you're just better off doing in order to learn.
Whoa! Get my money's worth! is your motto and you will forever miserable. You need to paddle your own canoe at some stage of your learning. To mitigate your lugubrious bent I suggest this: you cannot know every custom. If you are going to country X do some quick research, watch people and just let your personality take over. You may be an expert on all those little cultural cues but if you have the personality of the Canadian Prime Minister you no one will bother with you.