Erin Williams

A recent article in the Globe & Mail shed critical light on the low number of Canadian undergraduate students who do exchange programs or internships abroad. Our recent NCA Conversation posed a related question: Is on-the-ground experience in Asia necessary to develop the skills, knowledge and attitudes collectively known as ‘Asia competence’? Contributors in both pieces talk about the value of ‘the experience’ of spending time overseas, yet there is surprisingly little discussion of what ‘the experience’ actually is, and how having this experience makes us into wiser and more effective global citizens.

Many who have spent time overseas – myself included – rhapsodize about how the sights, sounds, smells, and interactions in foreign lands can have an exhilarating effect; when we are overseas, it often feels as though all five senses are all switched on in a way that they aren’t in more familiar surroundings. But Nadya Ladouceur helped me understand what seems to be a missing link between this type of on-the-ground experience and the development of Asia competence: an emphasis on experiential learning.

Nadya is the Experiential Education Coordinator at Renaissance College, a degree program in leadership at the University of New Brunswick – Fredericton. Renaissance students focus their first years of study on leadership theory, then have the opportunity to test those theories through two required internships – one in Canada and the other overseas.

Lucas Pollard, a Renaissance student who completed his international internship with a 10-week placement in Bhutan, walked me through the internship’s experiential learning component. He and his three Renaissance classmates not only lived with Bhutanese students, but they also worked with them in designing and implementing an education program for local high school students. And all the while, they kept journals as a way to reflect on and guide their own understanding of how classroom learning applies in an out-of-classroom setting. Upon return to Fredericton, he and his fellow Renaissance students engaged in a kind of de-briefing period during which they had a chance to actively process their experience. The program exemplifies experiential learning at its best: concrete experience, observation and reflection, and re-testing in new situations.

Creating more opportunities for Canadian students to get on-the-ground exposure in Asia is an important first step to building greater Asia competence. But an important next step is to think how we can learn from the Renaissance College model by also creating opportunities to maximize the intellectual growth and leadership attributes that such experiences can create.