Study abroad can jump start your career

In today’s international marketplace, organizations are looking for employees who understand how to work beyond borders. Whether you plan to join a local company, a government agency, an educational institution, or a multinational corporation, you must prove that you can adapt to a globally connected workplace. Employers increasingly expect candidates to work with widely diverse people from different cultures with different ideas, experiences, values, and viewpoints. Learning abroad is one of the best ways to gain this experience and differentiate yourself from others.

Study abroad strengthens employability

Learning abroad offers a range of programs designed to enhance your college experience, inform your future career, and hone your employability. But your program should work for you. When selecting your learning abroad program, factor in your intended degree, career goals, and personal interests. Consider combining coursework with an internship, community engagement, or research experience to gain direct experience and academic credit, and develop your professional skills and contacts.

Globally competent students graduating from Washington State University, as a result of their Global Learning experiences, will:

• Understand connections that can be made from historical, cultural, economic, and political contexts that shape society and reflect global systems.
• Demonstrate knowledge of and be sensitive to others’ differing identities and values across cultures.
• Apply intercultural communication skills to interact effectively with individuals and in groups.
• Interact respectfully and responsibly across boundaries in diverse environments.

Global Cougs Digital Badges

Gain global competencies from where you are

If traditional study abroad isn’t an option for you, Digital Badges give you an equal opportunity to develop your global competencies. You can earn a Digital Badge from your home campus, or anywhere in the world for free.

Global Cougs Digital Badges give all WSU students a path to develop global competencies without traveling abroad. They also help prepare and orient students before they depart on a traditional study abroad program. Each of the 6 Global Cougs badges is grounded in a specific Global Learning value, which provides a unique and translatable framework for global learning outcomes. Earning one or all of the 6 badges equips students with global knowledge, engaging experiences, and new ways of thinking about the world and the people in it.

Develop a mature, integrated identity with an understanding of the systemic interrelationships among the self, local and global communities, and the natural world.

Hone your ability to recognize the origins and influences of your own cultural heritage along with its limitations. Develop the curiosity to learn and collaborate respectfully within the cultural diversity of other people.

Prove your ability to engage and learn from perspectives and experiences different from your own and understand how your place in the world both informs and limits your knowledge of it.

Understand the complex and overlapping worldwide systems that operate in observable patterns and are affected by or are the result of human design or disruption.

Effectively apply knowledge and put skills into action by understanding the integrated and systemic interrelationships between past and present challenges.

Recognize your responsibilities to society locally, nationally, and globally and develop a perspective on ethical and power relations across the globe and within societies.

• Badges demonstrate skills and qualifications that tell a story beyond your diploma or academic certificate.
• Digital Badges build your professional portfolio. Include your badges on your resume, LinkedIn, etc.
• You will receive a certificate for each Digital Badge you earn, which can be verified by future employers when they email ip.globallearning@wsu.edu.