While most graduating college students frantically search for entry-level jobs, some University of Alabama students plan alternative post-graduation experiences around the globe.
Emma Fick, a senior majoring in English, applied to teach English in South Korea and also applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Serbia.
“I’ve always wanted to live abroad, not visit, not as a tourist, but live there and learn the culture and the language, and this seemed like a good way to do that,” Fick said.
Austin Lafferty, a senior majoring in philosophy, applied for a two-year fellowship teaching English in rural China with Teach for China, an affiliate of Teach for America.
“I’ve been going to China for the past two summers, and I’ve been studying Mandarin. It’s just a completely different place,” he said. “I just want to have some interesting, different experiences. This would be one of those [experiences] but also something that would be useful, something that I could do with my time that I could thoroughly enjoy, but also feel like I would be doing something worthwhile.”
Lafferty also said he wants to avoid the more typical path for new college graduates.
“I kind of want to spend a couple of years not getting in the rat race just yet, because I feel like it’s skewing my view of the world.”
Daniel Connors, a senior majoring in marketing and management, interned in Shanghai last summer, will intern there again this summer and plans to work in Asia after he graduates.
“Having the opportunity to work in China gave me a better understanding of the global work environment,” Connors said. “In international business especially, having an experience abroad at a global office is what gets you [the job].”
Connors also said he views his time abroad as a valuable asset for understanding the economic boom in Asia.
“It gave me the opportunity to be exposed to so many different industries and to get a better understanding of what is actually going on in Asia,” Connors said. “It’s better than reading a news article about it.”
Unlike Connors, Fick does not see working abroad as a career opportunity.
“I’m viewing it as a break, which is ironic, because I’ll be working very hard,” she said. “It’s not a part of a career path.”
Fick, who is Jewish, said she applied to work in Serbia for deeply personal reasons.
“I have family history there,” she said. “I had family in Yugoslavia that got out in World War II because my grandmother’s sister married a Serbian man who paid for their ticket to America after the government confiscated all of their money.”
She does have some concerns about living in a place where English is not the dominant language.
“I worry about being able to form meaningful relationships with locals. I want to connect with Serbians, not other Americans or even other English speakers, necessarily,” Fick said. “I worry that I wouldn’t be able to pick up the language enough to communicate with them.”
Lafferty said going abroad has been a formative experience for him.
“I think that everybody should [go abroad],” he said. “It’s a really great opportunity to open yourself up to new experiences and be exposed to a lot of new, completely different ways of life. It’s a really eye-opening experience.”
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