THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2014
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JOBS
PAGE 7
Students seek employment opportunites abroad
KRISTA MONTGOMERY
news@kansan.com
While other 2014 graduates are preparing to start their careers or filling out job applications, Will Dale, a recent University graduate from Topeka holds a one-way ticket to O Barco de Valdeorras, Spain, where he will teach English in the country's Auxiliares de Conversación program.
For the first time, Dale won't be spending the holidays with his family, and he's not alone. According to the most recent estimate by the U.S.State Department, approximately 6.8 million Americans are now living overseas—more than ever before.
According to the Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, more U.S. students are studying abroad than before.
Wendy Shoemaker, senior associate at the University Career Center, helps prepare students for international careers and said that this trend is partly explained by increasing globalization.
Dale's own study abroad experience in Costa Rica led him to seek out his position in Spain.
Dale said his eight months abroad
"We all live in a global economy, we're recipients of a global economy, whatever that means...whether it involves travel, work or volunteering, or having international friends," she said.
You have to be that global citizen that KU promotes to be competitive and to really succeed wherever you want to be.
WILL DALE University graduate
led to different opportunities he wasn't aware of before—overseas jobs, skills and knowing another language.
INFOGR.AM BY KRISTA MONTGOMERY/KANSAN
Julie Hamel, assistant director at the University Career Center, said students must understand that many of the jobs they'll have will have an international component—selling products abroad, importing products, expanding business into a new country or outsourcing parts of a business.
"You have to be that global citizen that KU promotes to be competitive and to really succeed wherever you want to be," Dale said. "Whether that's in my hometown in Topeka, Kansas, or whether that's in Spain or Costa Rica."
"It's kind of an awareness thing, that [globalization is] already here," Hamel said. "How can you, as a young professional, become more aware and knowledgeable?"
Both Shoemaker and Hamel teach students to be more proactive global participants and try to involve them in a group of globally engaged people.
These kind of jobs offer international experience and require many of the same skills necessary for a career abroad. Hamel believes these skills manifest in the qualities of openness and adaptability—qualities that make
You don't have to work abroad to have an international career, Shoemaker said. Often U.S.-based workers travel abroad or work with international companies and representatives on a regular basis.
An informatichart displaying the number of American residents living and working abroad in various areas of the world. According to the U.S.State Department, approximately 6.8 million Americans a now living overseas.
an effective international worker.
Blane Harding, Office of Multicultural Affairs director, said businesses that bring together people with different experiences, outlooks and worldviews are important to establish new ideas and relate to different customers.
"If you can relate to others who are
different to yourself internally, then you can relate to people who are different to yourself externally," Harding said. "It brings a lot."
— Edited by Kaitlyn Klein