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IIEPassport's Student of the Month
Click here to view previous Students of the Month
By Sara E. Savage
Michael Ernst knows his way around the world pretty well these days, thanks to his participation in the "Cities in the 21st Century" program, offered through the International Honors Program (IHP). He studied abroad through the program as a student, and continued his exploration of foreign countries by becoming a trustee fellow with the program.
The IHP program Ernst participated in placed emphasis on how cities are changing and the effects on the people living in them. After a two-week introductory course in New York City, all the students traveled together in the same group to different cities and took the same classes with the same faculty. Ernst says that studying abroad with IHP was much like creating a traveling learning community.
Ernst attended Miami University of Ohio as an undergraduate with a major in interdisciplinary studies. He studied abroad through IHP in India, Brazil and South Africa. He wrote his senior thesis on Cape Town, South Africa, where he would return years later as a trustee fellow with the program. Ernst also traveled abroad as a trustee in Argentina, China and India.
As an IHP trustee and a city planning graduate student at the University of California Berkeley, Ernst served as a student advocate, mediating conflicts, monitoring student health and generally looking out for them while abroad. He calls his work as a trustee "the best job ever," and the fact that it fit into his academic and professional interests optimized the experience. Being a trustee also involved helping teachers lead discussions, structuring academic programs and serving as a facilitator/teacher assistant.
IIEPassport was lucky enough to catch up with Michael Ernst to find out about his adventures firsthand.
Q. What motivated you to study abroad?
A. I came into college not knowing what I wanted to do, but I knew I was interested in a lot of issues having to do with culture, social justice and the environment. It took me a year or two of school to realize I can actually study all of it. I decided to concentrate on cities, where all these issues are having an effect.
Very few programs seemed to be interested in social justice issues until I found IHP. It's not about studying just one place, but comparative study abroad-looking at the same issues in different cities, like transport and environmental issues. We look to see how the government in Bangalore responds to problems in comparison to the government in Cape Town.
Q. Which was your favorite destination and why?
A. Each place was interesting in its own way. Going to India was eye-opening in so many ways. I remember driving from the airport and not being able to stop staring out the window. That initial sense of culture shock was eye-opening; knowing that the world is much more than what I know.
Cape Town is very important to me too. Because apartheid ended so recently, the differences between the rich and poor is so stark out there, and we had so many conversations about race and class. It's important to have these honest conversations, because there's no denying the situation in South Africa. It has been great to bring those ideas back to the states. I went to Chicago when I got back and was able to look at things much differently.
Q. How did you compare your experiences from country-to-country?
A. The great thing about the program is that we got to compare cities on an academic level with the built-in comparative element in the program. You look at questions like, 'How do people share a meal together?' Seeing the roles of mother and daughter and how they treat guests from country-to-country was a great way of learning about a place. You just can't really learn about things like race and gender issues in a classroom.
Q. How were your home stay experiences in the different countries?
A. Home stay was a much more personal way of making the connections. You get to experience living with a family-their eating habits, what they like to do on a day-to-day level. All of my home stays were wonderful in very different ways, and I had a great experience in each for different reasons. One thing they all had in common was the family-unit function, which I was able to observe. Every family has dysfunction, and I found similarities to my own family, but there were interesting differences.
In Cape Town, I stayed with two different families, one was a white upper-class suburban family, and the other was a working-class black family living in the township. It was interesting to see the very different worlds in the same city, as far as day-to-day experiences and exposure to events. The township area was windswept and barren, with less street trees. It was in many ways a very different world, and spoke to how the legacy of apartheid still permeates the lives of South Africans.
Q. How was your study abroad experience as a trustee fellow different from your experience as a student?
A. A lot of the differences were about my role as a staff person versus a student, but it was also about where I was as a person each time. As a student, I was 19 and at a certain level of maturity. I'd never been abroad before, and while I was interested in the issues, my frame of reference of the world was limited. I would observe and process what was going on around me, but it's hard to ask questions besides about observational things. As a student, it was more about absorbing information. As a trustee, because I had been abroad and knew a little more about being an American abroad, I was more observant and asked more questions-better questions. I was able to ask the harder questions and get more rigorously into my research
First trip may have been the best because I was a blank canvas without expectations. Everything I was experiencing hit hard, and I wish I could recapture that feeling.
Q. Do you get that feeling at all by living vicariously through the students you support as a trustee?
A. Yes, definitely. The difficult balance was being able to relate to students but not to project my experiences onto them. It's a challenge to try and relate but not say my experiences are the only valid ways of looking at things.
Q. Did you experience culture shock or homesickness?
A. Yes, I would say so! What's unusual about the program is we got to go to so many places, that it's not just culture shock in one country. We went from India to South Africa, so we were not only dealing with being an American in India, but also the transition to South Africa. In four weeks we'd get used to one place and then it was all out the window when we traveled to the next place-different cultural norms, greetings and gestures.
Q. What are your career plans?
A. I'd like to work as an urban designer, creating sustainable communities. I'm taking a studio this semester at the waterfront area of San Francisco with a lot of old industrial buildings. I'm approaching it from a broad perspective-there's a huge demand for housing, as well as legal and environmental issues. I am also interested in looking at the field from a non-academic way and coming up with specific solutions to improve situations through special interventions.
Q. Any plans to take your career abroad?
A. I would love to work abroad, but I don't know when that will happen. The great thing is that there is demand for urban planners around the world-particularly in China with its urbanization-that want to create environments that are good for next generations. It's not just about having random, uncontrolled development. This is an issue in the developing world in India, with its rapidly urbanizing of Dubai. Even in Europe, there are issues around historical preservations and the changing global economy.
Q. What advice would you give students interested in studying abroad, both as a student and as a trustee?
A. Really recommend International Honors Programs because they are interdisciplinary and focused on many different things. Generally, the most important thing is to go outside your comfort zone and really push yourself. Study abroad is always eye-opening, but there's great value to going to places that are not traditional. Taking a little risk and trying something new can be really rewarding.
IHP opened up so many possibilities and opened up new career ideas for me. My life would be very different if I hadn't went. Being exposed to this to such a degree as a young person has had a huge influence on my life.
Click here to view previous Students of the Month