You can help give students an international experience, enhancing their learning and career prospects. Please note that our team is working remotely following the UK government’s guidance relating to the COVID-19 outbreak. We’re still very much on hand to assist with your queries relating to donations. The most efficient way to donate just now is online or via bank transfer. Unfortunately, we can’t take donations over the phone at the moment or process donations sent through the post. Thank you for your patience and support. Our short-term international experiences give our students the resilience, cultural sensitivity, language skills and drive to take on the world. Whether for an internship, a conference or cultural experience, you can support students wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the wider world and help them become truly global citizens.Research from the British Council and Association of Graduate Recruiters shows that employers prioritise the ability to work collaboratively with people from diverse backgrounds in young graduates. With a gift today, you can help students gain these skills through an international experiences. Donate nowYour gift in actionGearóid, Clinical Fellow in Nursing Studies, PhD student and Clinical Nurse Specialist in mental health nursing for the NHS.“I learned that there is more that unites us than divides us.”Through the Go Abroad programme I was able to visit Singapore last year to attend the International Council of Nurses Biannual Congress.I was there to present my research on different regions and their mental health policies to 6,000 nurses from 135 countries around the world. This was a very daunting thought but luckily my presentation was a success. Several nursing publications even picked it up! It has been my career highlight to date.The best things about my trip included meeting the local nurses and my visit to a local psychiatric hospital. I learned that hospitals everywhere face the same issues as we do in the UK.My trip gave me confidence in my work and the ability to ask people in power the difficult questions. I managed to question the Chief Nursing Officer for the World Health Organisation on some of her strategies!The biggest lesson I learned was that; the world is small and answers are everywhere. We can look to each other and solve problems by learning from our peers all over the world. Image Jemima, 3rd Year Architecture student“I have confidence in myself.”Last summer I travelled to Hungary to take part in the ‘Hello Wood’ architectural summer camp. The main goal of the camp is to get away from the computer and have the opportunity to learn practical skills to build a structure we design ourselves.Hands-on skills are something I had very limited experience with as it’s not something we practice in the classroom. We were put into teams led by trained architects and had to build a structure in a week. Our team was great. I still keep in touch with them and have made lots of contacts in the industry for future placements and internships.My time at the camp has not only given me the basic practical skills I wanted but also the confidence to talk about them. Building sites are still very male dominated places and for young women, like myself, it can be extremely intimidating. Feeling uncomfortable or not being taken seriously was a real fear of mine. Thanks to my experience, I now feel I can talk about the basics and I want to do more practical placements to keep improving this.Taking part in ‘Hello Wood’ has been amazing and it was thanks to the Go Abroad programme I was able to go.Go Abroad is great because you can have these practical and educational experiences in your summer holidays. You can use your spare time wisely to help your university and wider career. University doesn’t always reflect the real world but these experiences do. Go Abroad allows us to engage with our subject in the real world. It is so important. Image This article was published on 2024-10-29
