As students at Harvard in the midst of a busy spring semester, sometimes it’s too easy to feel that our campus is all there is: suddenly, trying Widener instead of Lamont is an adventure, and trekking to Annenberg breakfast is a cross-cultural journey. “Thinking Outside the Yard: International Professionals in Today’s World” challenged this Harvard-centric sentiment, as panelists spoke about experiences not only outside Harvard, but outside the United States.
As the program made clear, there is an immense world outside Cambridge that is waiting for us Harvard students to explore and understand. The real question: how do we prepare? Francisco Marmolejo Sr., a director and assistant vice president at University of Arizona, argued that learning foreign languages is the answer. “Only 45% of pages on the internet are in English, and by 2050, Madarin and Hindi are going to be the most spoken languages,” he projected. “Since speech is so important for becoming a successful professional, learning two or three languages is almost imperative.” Other panelists echoed the impact of foreign language study: Snezhana Zlatinova ‘07, an HBS student, unexpectedly used the German, French, and Mandarin she studied at Harvard in her first jobs as a business analyst overseas. “I was always using languages in unexpected places, and it had such a huge effect on my plans and career,” she explained.
However, not all of us can glean so much from a few Harvard language classes, which is why Professor Benedict Gross, a mathematics scholar and former Dean of Harvard College, suggested the only true and fast way to learn a foreign language is to travel to the country itself. “If you really want to learn a specific language, travel alone to where it’s spoken. People who travel in groups don’t actually get the full experience.” Francisco also encouraged the audience to persevere with learning difficult foreign languages. “Don’t worry too much about the mistakes you make,” he said.
Not only did panelists motivate the students in the audience to pursue experiences abroad, but some suggested that working internationally was actually a responsibility of the educated. Professor Max Essex, Chair of the Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative and the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute in Botswana, spoke from the standpoint of the research on infectious diseases. “These diseases do not have borders. They are spread across nations,” he explained. “It is irresponsible for the developed world not to have an interest or presence in developing countries to help solve the problem of these diseases.”
In any experience abroad, the panelists encouraged students to “stay loose” since it is really impossible to predict what will or will not work out in a foreign adventure. Stay relaxed, challenge yourself, and stay alert. And as Francisco put it, “There’s nothing you can learn more out of international experience than humility.”
— Julia Eger, ’14
