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Cultural Vistas - Internships and professional exchange programs

Cultural Vistas CEO Reiterates the Importance of In-Person Experiences in Global Professional Development

Jennifer Clinton, CEO of Cultural Vistas which is a Gateway programs collaborator, emphasizes the benefits of face-to-face work and professional development for students, recent graduates and professionals. In a 2020 interview with the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy (https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/story/qa-cpd-jennifer-clinton), Clinton reflects on balancing the realities of temporary measures to address challenges posed by Covid with the need for thinking creatively about how to return to in-person experiences as necessary and vital aspects of individual and group professional development: “…there are some interactions and experiences that cannot be fully replicated online,” she explains.
In the nearly three years since Clinton described the challenges for global experiential programming caused by Covid, we are seeing a renewed appreciation for the direct values of organized global experience programs and growing optimism that the return to in-person work and professional collaboration presents exciting new opportunities. As Clinton explains:

“Work-based, global learning opportunities are no longer a ‘nice-to-have.’ They are a must. We believe the opportunity to participate in an international internship—particularly one that provides exposure to a
new language and culture, and strengthens skills such as adaptability, empathy and resilience, will only grow in importance as a necessary complement to one’s education and career pursuits.”

Clinton’s perspectives in 2020 are just as relevant today, perhaps even more so, as global workplaces and educational institutions design and implement experiential professional programming for the ‘post-Covid’ years ahead:
“To be effective, international exchange experiences need to be well-designed and allow individuals to reap the personal and professional benefits of the learning experience. To design and effectively evaluate these programs, we need people who understand educational theory and, in particular, fundamentals of experiential education.”
These are the types of experiential professional opportunities that the new partnership between Gateway Global Learning Network and Cultural Vistas now offers.

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