Skills for Global Students

Career Skills for Global Students

What do we actually learn in area and culture studies? The answer may seem straightforward: languages, cultures, histories, societies. But how do you translate those classes and activities into skills to put on your resume? How do studies of ancient Chinese bronze vessels, medieval Japanese peasants, or Korean literature, for example, improve your chances of getting your dream job outside of Academia?

Throughout the year, we will help you in this critical process of translating your classroom experiences into marketable and transferable skills through short monthly workshops. The skills targeted in this series are not proficiencies gained in a single class, but high-value skills to continuously grow across courses and throughout your educational and professional career.

Each session consists of a brief introduction to a high-value skill you could write about in a personal statement or resume, followed by a workshop in which students contextualize their classroom experiences, working to articulate the skills they have gained and will gain in their coursework. This program is created and organized by EASC with support from the Hamilton Lugar School and the HLS Living-Learning Center.

At the end of the program, participants will be able to define marketable and transferable skills on their resumes based on the humanities and social sciences coursework offered throughout the Hamilton Lugar School.

2024-2025 Details

What: Join us for dinner and a workshop! Each month, you’ll learn how to translate your valuable knowledge of area studies, languages, and cultures into a new skill you can put on your resume.

Where: see specific locations for each session below

Dates: September 10th, October 15th, November 12th, December 10th, January 14th, February 11th, April 8th

2024-2025 Session Topics

Tuesday September 10, 2024

Things don’t happen for just one reason. Area studies pursues a holistic and multi-disciplinary understanding of how diverse social and historical environments lead to different organizational structures and outcomes. Developing a broader perspective of the varied pressures on a system leads students to grow the ability to analyze how complex outcomes result from non-linear changes.

Where: GA 2134

Tuesday October 15, 2024

Worldview is created individually and collectively. Area studies pursues a deeper comprehension of how knowledge about the world is created in social and historical contexts and why people with different cultural backgrounds may come to very different conclusions based on the same information. Often, the most valuable person in the room is the one who anticipates the range of human reactions to a course of action and actively sidesteps problems during the design process.

Where: GA 3067

Tuesday November 12, 2024

Communication is not just about words and sentences, but that meaning is created through self-awareness, complex symbols, gestures, body language, and subtle cultural references. Language training and awareness of cultural context deepens the amount of information a person gets from a conversation or text. These communication skills enhance your ability to work in teams and solve complex problems.

Where: GA 1060

Tuesday December 10, 2024

The ability to understand people from vastly different cultures and the ways they reach conclusions about values, norms, and ethics is a fundamental skill in most work situations involving other human beings. To manage and lead complex systems and engage in strategic thinking, the ability to quickly consider multiple perspectives is vital.

Where: GA 2134

Tuesday January 14, 2025

Know your audience, identify gaps, act with impact. An understanding of ideas and social configurations from outside the US provides students rich opportunities to rethink existing social structures and practices. In understanding how different peoples interact with the world, students hone their ability to see need and recognize opportunity in places invisible to those only on the “inside” or “outside” of a situation.

Where: GA 1060

Tuesday February 11, 2025

Once you create a message, all possible interpretations of that message exist for the audience to adopt. Words, actions, and images exist as complex symbols tied into the network of an individual’s worldview. Area studies explores the role of meaning in the face of cultural values and individual understanding. By practicing the interpretation, translation, and analysis of varied symbols from multiple perspectives, students are more likely to understand and be understood in diverse social settings.

Where: GA 1060

Tuesday April 8, 2025

Can students in the humanities and area studies become innovators and entrepreneurs? This session explores how we often unknowingly train design thinking—a problem-solving framework emphasizing creativity, iteration, and critical thinking. We will explore how cultural literacy, historical knowledge, and non-linear thinking can drive innovation in diverse fields, from sustainable business models to social and cultural enterprises. The session will begin with a brief summary of the ‘hidden skills’ that we have covered in previous sessions, so now is the time to catch up! Join us to discover how area studies and the humanities can fuel new approaches to entrepreneurship and innovation in a rapidly changing world!

 Where: GA 1060