Employability and skills

William Du, ICS China:

If there is one thing, I have taken away from my ICS year, it is that I am highly passionate about international engagement. My year abroad surrounded me with people from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds – living in dorm buildings alongside people from every continent gave me opportunities to learn something new about the world every day that I would never have even considered in Australia. This also allowed me to develop a strong and fluent set of intercultural communication skills. I am now more confident in my abilities to connect with and find common ground with different people. By engaging with locals and expats alike in everyday chat and through my ICS empirical research project, I was able to relate to people anywhere from Nigeria to North Korea. This has also helped me greatly in my employability. As diversity initiatives are becoming increasingly common focuses for international employers, I am able to collaborate more effectively and build rapport with team members. Furthermore, I am able to bring an expansive international network and bilingualism to the job, underpinned by my cultural expertise from my international connections and empirical research project.

Adam Brieger, ICS Latino USA:

After my ICS year at the University of Texas, Austin, I remained in the United States to work as a legislative intern at a non-profit research organisation on campus for six months. I worked in a team to research and summarise political and legal developments in different States, with the mission of enhancing transparency in government. This allowed me to engage with my host country’s political environment and learn about the diverse cultures and perspectives that constitute it.

Evans Li, ICS Japan:

Through my ICS program, I found a way to grow my personality, and self-confidence by getting familiar with opening myself up to meet people from all walks of life. Of course, a majority were the Japanese roommates whom I stayed with and who broadened my understanding of their values and worldviews (for example, their attitudes towards growing up, their education system, gender roles, household values, cultural identity and much more). I gradually learnt to share my own interests in food as a cultural bridge with other international students, through my thesis and ultimately got my Japanese friends and roommates involved in the research gathering process like attending interviews and looking into resources and concepts I personally wouldn't have found on my own.

Evans Li, ICS Japan:

Becoming acquainted with the nuances and phrases in casual, everyday Japanese language as well as having the fundamental knowledge of formal and business Japanese has opened a world of opportunities for my career. It has enabled me to apply a deeper understanding towards the Japanese consumer market including marketing to their preferences for mobile devices, popular demographics and much more.

Jack Berkefeld, ICS Argentina:

My 2017 ICS trip to Argentina shaped me into the journalist I am today. There are many subtle 'soft skills' a journalism student must develop before they are to be released in the world and an experience as life changing as a year's study abroad is a unique opportunity to develop these skills. One of these skills I developed was independence. Prior to my time in Argentina I was a very anxious and shy young lad. I was in many ways dependent on the good will of others in my journalism as I was too anxious to assert myself. My time in Argentina changed all that: immersing oneself in a (by Australian standards) gruff and insular culture where English isn't spoken requires one to come to terms with their social anxieties and to push past them. This reckoning compelled me to develop my own self-confidence in the face of adversity and I haven't looked back since. 

Evans Li, ICS Japan:

One of the biggest hurdles and milestones of ICS for many is moving away from home for a year. For the most part, being away from supervision, parental support enabled me to become more self-sufficient and conscious of my own decisions in life in setting up things like insurance, ensuring deadlines were met on top of balancing other daily tasks. Being in charge of my life led me to becoming more organised and understanding of my performance. Rather than being told how to do something and who to compare against, I developed confidence in knowing what I needed to do and what skills I needed to achieve it which has been invaluable in adapting to a constantly changing work environment.

Dexter Cave, ICS Germany:

I used to think I had it all sorted out, that I understood not only myself but other people. I had a preconceived idea of what Germany, Germans, and Berlin would be like. But after a year in Berlin I think what I really learnt was to question myself, question my predispositions, and my assumptions. I became super aware of my Australian-ness, and I began to question how I behaved in public, how I felt about the world, and ask why I felt those things, or why I behaved that way. I think that observing people in a different cultural setting brought about a self-awareness that I didn’t have before.

Jack Berkefeld, ICS Argentina:

As a journalist, I think it's essential to be able to empathise with your subject matter - especially the marginalised - as it is their stories that are most likely to be misrepresented. A very jarring yet necessary method of getting a sense of the struggles of those around you is to spend time in a city like Buenos Aires where inequality is apparent as soon as you step out your front door. I would say that I developed on a moral level through my time in Argentina, especially when I went travelling and was able to make friends with people from all walks of life. Those relationships have helped me develop a 'fuller' picture of the world around me and have made me better appreciate the privileges I am blessed with. 

Ninah Kobel, ICS Argentina:

During my exchange in Buenos Aires, I took a class where the professor asked for a “female” student to be his assistant for the semester. He said he would need help to distribute reading material and correspond with the class and felt “women are just better suited to those sorts of tasks”. The feminist in me was horrified, but I didn’t know what to do. I realised I was a foreigner in a different culture and wanted to be respectful of that. But after weeks watching his assistant do his menial chores, I felt I had to say something. I decided to write him an email, but what started as a few lines, quickly turned into an essay.

What I learnt from this is that resilience isn’t about accepting things the way they are. It’s about approaching them discerningly; thinking critically and creatively to find constructive ways of managing difficult situations. The professor responded to my multi-page essay with a few half-hearted lines, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he still asks for a female assistant every semester. But I feel more positive about my exchange experience knowing I held true to my values, even while immersing myself in a new cultural environment.

Sally Hunt, ICS Chile:

My ICS experience in Chile exposed me to so many different and surprising cultural perspectives. For the first time in my life, I felt deeply and personally challenged by other people’s beliefs, particularly relating to Chilean history and politics. I came to realise the importance of actively listening and finding reason and having empathy for other people’s personal experiences and worldviews across the political spectrum, even when they directly oppose my own. 

After I graduated from a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, I went on to work as a native title lawyer. I was able to apply the intercultural reflection skills I learnt abroad back home. I used my skills to build trust, and to listen closely to my clients’ concerns and wishes to solidify their unique personal histories as evidence in their native title claims. Native title can be a very delicate process, as the various stakeholders in native title proceedings often have deeply opposing historical, cultural and spiritual experiences and perspectives. I was able to listen and empathise with all interested parties, and then effectively explain the operation of the native title system to mitigate their particular concerns. The skills I learned during my ICS year allowed me to work towards securing the best outcomes for my clients throughout the different stages of the native title process.

Steph Newman, ICS Japan:

When we think about international study, we’re quick to identify the new things that we can learn: a foreign language, a way of life in another place. But what we sometimes forget to consider is how spending time in a different place will help us learn more about ourselves, about our own culture and way of life.

One of the most surprising things about spending any extended period overseas is how much we reflect on being the outsider, the foreigner. For students who have never experienced being part of a cultural minority, this can be quite a shock.

For me, growing up white in Australia afforded me privilege and anonymity: nobody ever looked at this face in a crowd. It was only when I moved to rural Japan as part of In-Country Study that I learned what it was like to be identified instantly as a foreigner.

I also learned how strange so many things about my own culture seem to other cultures. While we often go abroad and ask ourselves, “Why do they dress like that? Why do they eat this?”, travel also allows us to question our own countries. Why, for example, do Australians dress so casually to go to work, compared to the formal suit of the Japanese worker? How did we develop an appetite for Vegemite?

Learning a foreign language, too, prompts reflection: why is English spelling so difficult? Where did we get these strange Australian slang terms from? Half an hour trying to teach my Japanese friends the difference between “avo” and “arvo” had me questioning the logic of Australian English.

Returning to Australia, students will find themselves enriched by the ability to understand what it’s like to be culturally different, a highly valuable skill for moving into multicultural workplaces. Students will hopefully return home a little more reflective, a little more empathetic. 

Matthew Young, ICS Germany:

As an aspiring filmmaker studying media and communications, I utilised my ICS research projects to more extensively practice and deepen my media analysis skills whilst specialising in the context of Germany and the German screen industry. For my first assessment task, I chose to conduct a discourse analysis on the hit German TV drama series “Weisensee” (on German Netflix). I looked at how commercial drama content producers in Germany today are treating certain German cultural identities (Eastern Germans v West Germans) and how that representation reflects imbalanced power relations. This led me to look into on-going debates and tensions popularly featured in the local print and online media in my ICS city (Potsdam), which made what I had encountered in my analysis not just something I had studied, but something very real and present in the former Eastern German community I was now immersed in! I then decided to make my major research assessment task an opportunity to delve and investigate this niche subject area further. This all resulted in me developing the ability to independently lead research projects, design and conduct interviews and surveys, as well as gave me a tonne of confidence through experience in communicating both professionally and personally with others (let alone in a foreign language!). 

Maria Gaudioso, ICS Italy:

As part of my In-Country Research Project, I chose to examine and compare pedagogy – Whole Language Approach VS the Italian State School System. Whilst undertaking research, I completed observations in a variety of schools in Lecce. My observations were of English Language teachers in primary and middle school. This was by far the most beneficial and enjoyable part of my time in Lecce. This experience in Italy has proven to be beneficial in my professional development as a foreign language teacher but has also given me the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge about how teaching practices can differ within different cultures and societies. This project has demonstrated to me the importance of creating contacts with teachers in other countries and working in different intellectual traditions to learn and develop teaching methodologies.

As a result of this program, I maintained contact with one school in particular “Scipione Ammirato Scuola Media Lecce” and several of their English teachers. When visiting Lecce on holidays, I always included a visit to the school to work with the students on their English Language skills and to share with them the Australian culture.

Ninah Kobel, ICS Argentina:

During my time in Argentina I found myself living in a large share-house with 7 housemates and an adopted street cat called Cuña. When Cuña’s owner went overseas, I volunteered to look after her in his absence. But pretty soon after he left Cuña started to get really sick. I rallied the housemates and a few of us decided to take her to the vet. To our horror, the vet told us that not only did she have a life threatening (but curable) condition, but that Cuña’s owner already knew about it. He had come in with her already but ignored the vet’s advice on treatment.

After a housemate meeting, we decided to do our best to save her; taking turns bringing her to appointments and surgery and agreeing to split the costs if her owner refused to pay. During project 'rescue Cuña’, I was covered in cat diarrhoea, scratched, bitten and travelled across Buenos Aires on the subway to collect a bag of rare cat blood. But I always had a housemate by my side. And nothing says team effort like working together to save a life.

Ankita Saha, ICS France:

During my ICS year I observed the diversity of France and became eager to produce a research project that could investigate how different aspects of a society can overlap. My area of interest was activism and how it can be motivated by race, a contentious topic in France. I found numerous organisations in Marseille that were at the forefront of anti-racism movements and became eager to gather primary data such as interviews and observations. However, while I had an ideal plan in my head this was not as easily achieved when put into motion. I faced a plethora of challenges from non-responsive organisations to cancelled rallies and protests.

Despite all of this, I remained resilient and my commitment to my research topic was kept on track by monitoring the news and my surroundings for examples of activism commenting on or against racism. This allowed me to change my approach and reach out to individuals on a more personal level and gather interviews both in person and online, which reflected the views and opinions of a diverse make up of France’s society. With every challenge I overcome, I was able to redirect the path of my project and learn the value of preserving to reach a goal.

Evans Li, ICS Japan:

The other side of being away from home and support is that there isn’t any safety net to help you when things don’t go your way. While preparation did help with ICS, not everything always went according to plan, whether a laptop stopped working or there was a missed flight, being responsible in the deep end ultimately taught me not only the skill of thinking on your feet but also being prepared to learn from the process of overcoming the situation.

India Bennett, ICS France:

The research methodologies I chose for my ICS project were surveys and interviews. To ensure the feasibility and success of both necessitated much planning, initiative and engagement with the local community. Coordinating the interviews in particular was challenging as it required me to make, sustain and utilise connections with Caennais people. I was able to meet interviewees through the university’s host family scheme and my relationship with professors. Similarly, I was able to conduct surveys of my local classmates with the help of professors who were interested in my topic. Undertaking the research required planning of how long data collection (interviewing, transcribing, distributing and collecting surveys), synthesis and analysis would take – as well as accounting for a wide margin of potential non-responses for the surveys – so I made sure that I had completed both the interviews and surveys over a month before the project due date.

Keeping to a strict timeline and setting and achieving goals allowed me to stay on task and ensured that I completed the project to a high standard. Through the process of completing my project I learnt the importance of self- and project management and, especially in light of my difficulties with project management in earlier stages of the project, credit the quality of my research and work to my development of these skills.

Dexter Cave, ICS Germany:

My ICS project about Tempelhofer Feld used a VLT (virtual landscape tour) as a vessel to communicate an ethnographic, as well as, historical understanding of the space. The idea came about from all the time I spent personally exploring the space over the year. I rode my bike around the giant park at least four times a week. And through doing this repetitive action and seeing how the park changed on a micro-scale, as well as progressively learning more about the park’s history through my own research, I developed the idea for my VLT. I wanted to take my viewer on an average late-autumn bike ride but also point out the nuance, complexity, and depth of meaning present in this space. To reveal things that are not necessarily obvious, things hidden on purpose, and understand how communities continue to occupy and structure space.

Sally Hunt, ICS Chile:

 

During my ICS year in Chile, I was challenged with many situations in which my personal ethics were confronted in the face of new social, legal, environmental and cultural contexts. Every responsible traveller tries not to offend the local culture wherever they go, whether that be following local laws, dressing and behaving appropriately, abiding by local traditions and norms, and generally trying to fit in. However, really becoming part of a culture challenges your ethics in all new ways, as you are not just passing through, but living within its boundaries and constructs. Do I politely let something pass without comment because it is simply ‘how it is done’ here, even if I feel it is morally incorrect and unjustified? This was a question I asked myself daily during my year abroad. 

Negotiating my way through these daily ethical challenges really developed my diplomacy skills: it opened my mind to new perspectives and taught me to stand up for myself and others when I felt it was required, to lead by example, and to communicate effectively, despite a strong difference of opinion. This skill has been an important asset in my professional life. As a non-Indigenous native title lawyer, I really enjoyed learning from the many different cultural dynamics I was exposed to, and as the International Teams Coordinator for an international solar car race, I was able to manage many different cultural expectations and behaviours in a predominantly male, tech-based field.

Wendy Min, ICS France:

Total immersion and engagement with France during the In-Country Studies (ICS) year eleven years ago allowed me to examine the depth and complexity of ethics. I developed this understanding through a range of areas such as debates sparked by social contemporary issues faced by the French and in which I participated as well as various dilemmas and questions that I explored during my studies, research and overall observation of French society. What is more delightful is how my ICS mindset and skills learnt from ICS stayed with me after all these years and how applicable it is regardless of which industry, which country/destination I’m in and which international activities I am busy with.

I was faced with ethical questions during my year abroad through something as small as tasting foie gras to larger issues through a teaching opportunity I had in a French school where we debated concepts such as secularism, the freedom to wear a hijab versus French Republican values as well as discussions on the reintroduction in French schools of courses civics and morality. Further discussions during my year abroad included topics such as France’s relationship with African countries to rising cases of police brutality against protesters during demonstrations. Such debates have all made me rethink "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

Since the ICS year, the skills gained in the area of ethics has surfaced countless times in my various roles whether at the frontline reporting for a major Western media in Beijing or dealing with Apple and Microsoft supply chains in Greater China Region or encountering contemporary debates during my own travels in various destinations, predominantly sanctioned and controversial countries and certainly throughout the process of running my own small-scale and internationally oriented charity.

The ICS experience continues. The difference is that my ethical considerations are not limited to just France or Francophone countries but the whole world.