What was the path that made you want to teach and brought you to SSU in the United States?
It had a lot to do with being an international student. When I graduated college, I got a job offer as a furniture store manager. Unfortunately, I was not old enough to drive the company's trucks, which was a requirement of the position. After this failure, I decided to go back to grad school to keep my visa. I wanted to be a corporate executive, so I thought I'd get a Ph.D. in a business-related field. A former instructor asked me to help her teach an MBA course and I loved it so much, I knew a few weeks into it that this was my calling, not the career path as a corporate executive I had envisioned prior to that experience.
Why do you think international education adds value to a college campus?
It is no secret that today's economy and business activities are global. The ability to strategize with global considerations and implications in mind is highly valued by potential employers. International education provides a unique opportunity for students to complete some of their coursework at another university abroad. This adds value to the college experience of those of our students who choose to make use of this invaluable opportunity available to them at SSU.
Why do you encourage students to study away? What advice would you give to a student who is interested in studying away yet is not sure if they should?
I would advise students to consider the difference between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be taught through textbooks and courses, tacit knowledge is very difficult to encode in a textbook and cannot really be taught in a classroom environment regardless of whether the course is online or in person. A large percentage of the knowledge needed to succeed in today's workplace is tacit in nature, meaning it can only be learned through experience.
When students live and study in another country and even a different continent than the one they were born and grew up in, it can be a life altering experience. It provides exposure and an appreciation for different ways to view the world, different value systems, people in other countries may not place much importance on some of the things that cause us so much anxiety or that we value so highly. Also, students learn that other groups around the world resolve some of the problems inherent to the human species in very different ways, and that those ways work perhaps just as effectively as our own ways. So the world is much bigger than California or the US. This exposure to different perspectives, world views, and ways to do things will inevitably help students become better at innovating within an existing corporation or become more proficient at creative ideation and generating more and more complex new venture ideas. It will also allow them to communicate with people from other cultures or even other value systems within their own culture. They will also be more tolerant of others and better able to empathize with the needs of others like their co-workers, customers, and leaders.
As someone who immigrated to the United States, what has been your biggest challenge?
Speaking a new language was a very painful process. I recall waiting for my turn to make a presentation in class as a junior in college and thinking that the one thing I had to be sure I could do was to know what I was going to say, what words I was going to use, and make sure I didn't lose the audience. I remember thinking how native speakers did not even have to worry about that, all they had to do was to work on their presentation and its content. So I had to work almost twice as much to get a less desirable outcome. But eventually if you work twice as much as others and are able to overcome temporary barriers, like language issues, you can really make progress in your career.
What tips would you share with students about to adapt to a new culture, either coming to the US or students studying away?
Keep an open mind and be mindful of cultural differences. Try to be a good listener and put aside your biases as much as possible so that you can pick on cues because there are likely to be differences relative to your own culture, but individuals are likely to also have their own views separate from but influenced by their culture.