Evolution of a Global Perspective: Experiential Learning During an Education Abroad Program‪.‬

Executive Summary The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of international education on the evolution of a global perspective. In today's highly interconnected world, actions and decisions of American citizens affect the economic and political conditions in other societies, and life in the United States is similarly influenced by the policies of other nations. In such an interdependent world educational institutions bear the responsibility to seek pedagogical methods for promoting a cosmopolitan world-view, a perspective based on an understanding of the dynamics of changing economic, political and environmental conditions in different countries. By reviewing journal entries of my students in the University of Virginia's Semester at Sea, I was able to assess their progress on the five constituent dimensions of a global perspective. Perusal of their journals amply demonstrated that the shipboard education program had enabled the students to distill intellectual meaning from their field excursions and incorporate these observations into the abstract ideas presented in the classroom. This fusion of academic curriculum with the insights students gained from their excursions in distant lands powerfully shaped their evolving world-view.