International co-op students take huge leaps to distant locales. And learn life-altering lessons.

By Elaine McArdle

At two or three in the morning, in a near-vacant airport terminal in a rough area of Johannesburg, South Africa, Brittany Hutchinson began to wonder if maybe she’d made a serious mistake.

Traveling solo to a co-op at a wildlife preserve in Namibia, exhausted by an emotional departure from her close-knit family and an eighteen-hour flight from Boston, Hutchinson was stuck overnight on a layover.

She’d canceled her cell phone before she left home and didn’t have Internet access in the terminal. She felt completely alone.

Afraid to fall asleep, she huddled on a chair, obsessing over her decision to go to Namibia to work with cheetahs and other big cats.

“I felt I was walking into a lion’s den—literally,” she recalls. “It was the longest eight hours of my life—the worst ever.”

But as the African dawn broke, a funny thing happened. Hutchinson suddenly realized that she needed to embrace her travels, no matter how arduous the journey.

She realized that the journey is, in fact, the entire point.

“Life is about the experiences you live,” says Hutchinson, who spent nine weeks tending to cheetahs at the Environmental and Cheetah Conservation in Namibia, another six weeks teaching English to children living in a South African township, and several more weeks looking after lions and baboons at a South African wildlife compound.

Living and working abroad continued to be hard sometimes, especially during Hutchinson’s first few days in Namibia, where she knew no one.

“There were plenty of nights when I went to sleep in tears,” she says. “It was incredible culture shock to go from e-mail and a cell phone to where you can’t communicate at all with the people you love.”

Yet she learned to depend on herself in a way she never would have been forced to do in the United States.

“Whenever I was feeling overwhelmed, or wondering what the heck I was doing, I’d get out my journal, throw some things down, and try to capture everything in front of me,” says Hutchinson, a senior double-majoring in English and history, who had had no previous experience in working with big animals.

Hutchinson relaxes with a Namibian friend. At the cheetah preserve, she spent her days feeding the big cats or rescuing them from enclosures in nearby fields, after farmers trapped them so they wouldn’t harm livestock.

At the wildlife preserve, she had to learn to face down cheetahs and lions. Backing away as they charge can lead to death or serious injury. One of Hutchinson’s colleagues was slashed by a cheetah when she showed fear.

“It was crazy,” Hutchinson recalls. “You’re in the middle of the African savannah, and, out of the blue, three cheetahs are coming at you.”

Despite her inexperience with animals, she says, “for some reason I was not afraid. I refused to be afraid because I knew that was a sign of weakness. I ended up having a tremendous relationship with these three cheetahs the six weeks I was there.”

In Africa, her perspective on life evolved. “You just appreciate the little things, and try not to sweat the small stuff and stress out too much,” says Hutchinson, who may pursue a career in international law after she graduates.

“You’re healthy, and have a roof over your head, and food,” she says, “and it’ll all work out in the end.”

Other Northeastern students returning from international co-ops echo Hutchinson by describing their experiences in glowing, almost spiritual terms.

It’s a wealth of voices. Each year, the university’s international co-op office helps more than two hundred students find positions with a wide variety of employers—from multi­national corporations to service organizations—in, to date, as many as three dozen countries.

The benefits of stateside experiential learning are well established: practical knowledge of the workforce, exposure to different career choices, an unusually robust resumé.

Overseas co-ops provide all these, plus a couple of potent extras. Working internationally helps students learn about the world firsthand, an important advantage as the globe becomes more interconnected.

And it instills a special confidence, the kind of self-assurance that comes when you have to rely on your inner resources under challenging, often remote circumstances.

This stretching of limits, which causes you to push yourself in ways you could not have predicted, proves invaluable to your personal and professional development, students say.

Rocco (far left) and Goldberg (far right) with a mother and patient at the children’s rehabilitation hospital in Banepa, Nepal.

“The simplest procedures are a big deal there”
Earlier this year, Maggie Goldberg and Christa Rocco, doctoral students in the physical therapy program, worked in rural Nepal in a town called Banepa.

“We lived for four months in a place where we couldn’t rely on all the things we rely on here,” Goldberg says. “We had electricity for only four hours during the day and four hours at night.”

The pair cared for children with serious deformities and burns at the Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children, staffed entirely by volunteer Nepalese doctors, nurses, and physical therapists. The hospital provides free services, including surgery, to impoverished children who have a clubfoot, burns, or some other serious disability.

In the United States, clubfoot deformities are surgically repaired soon after birth. Families in Nepal often have to save for years to afford the $20 medical fee generally required for the operation, which is far more painful for a teen than an infant.

Burns are a common injury for Nepalese children, who can fall into the open fires used for cooking food.

Unfortunately, Nepalese girls with deformities have trouble getting married, Goldberg notes. Likewise, Nepalese boys with deformities command a smaller dowry.

“The simplest procedures we take for granted here are a big deal there,” says Goldberg. “Realizing that definitely changed me.”

Goldberg and Rocco chose Nepal as their co-op site after researching areas in the world with a pressing need for physical therapists. They settled on working at the Banepa hospital after learning that doctors there spoke English.

Rocco (far left) and Goldberg (far right) with a mother and patient at the children’s rehabilitation hospital in Banepa, Nepal.

Before leaving Boston, however, the pair ran into resistance from Northeastern officials, who were worried about how safe they’d be in Nepal, one of the countries on the U.S. State Department’s travel-warning list.

Ultimately, the two women were able to convince the university—not to mention their own families—that they’d be able to handle any difficulties they’d face. As a result, they became the first physical therapy students from Northeastern to do a co-op in Nepal.

They moved in with a local family in Banepa, a town twenty-six kilometers from the capital, Kathmandu. They walked to work each day through rice paddies and wheat fields.

Hospital personnel, Goldberg says, “had one electrical unit for therapy, something every physical therapist in the States uses, and they thought it was broken. We took it out our first week there and showed them how to use it.

They were really limited in the technology they had, so we had to kind of make things up as we went along.”

This was a benefit, not a problem. “The best part for me professionally was that we had to learn to think outside the box,” says Goldberg.

Rocco agrees. Working as physical therapy aides in Nepal “enriched our education,” she says. “The experience was unforgettable. It’s given us a glimpse into a culture completely different from ours.”

“Very intense but incredible”
In 2008, Mark Martino and Brendan Tanguay also traveled as a pair, in their case to a plastics and electronics factory in Fenggang, China.

Martino, a biomedical physics major, and Tan­­guay, a physics major, were in Fenggang for six months. They worked at the factory six days a week, twelve hours a day.

Their home was the factory’s dormitories for workers. They counted themselves fortunate to be able to share a double room; other workers bunked six to a space.

“The beds,” reports Martino, “are a lot harder over there than here.”

Martino and Tanguay’s employer was Eastek International. Reporting directly to the president, the young men looked for workplace efficiencies and performed cost analyses, and helped the president seal a critical contract with a telecommunications company.

“We really saw the company grow over six months,” Tanguay says. “It was a very intense but incredible work experience.”

The friends, now seniors, chose to work in China because they wanted an adventure that would immerse them in the world of international business. They studied Mandarin briefly before leaving home.

But the real education came once they landed in China. “It was culture shock,” says Martino. “I didn’t think it existed, but once you touch down and people are staring at you because they’ve never seen a white person, it’s pretty intense.”

Their language skills developed quickly, out of necessity, Martino says. “The real learning came that first week, when you walk out of the company campus and try to get food, get a ride, get directions. You start to learn really fast.”

Although both men considered themselves hard workers before they left the States, their China experience gave them an unexpected perspective on cultural attitudes toward work.

Their day typically started around 6:30 a.m. with a little Tai Chi followed by breakfast. Then they’d go to the office and work until noon, when they’d take an hour’s break for lunch. (Martino says he loved the food: “Wonderfully fresh, very simple. Fresh fish and chicken for every meal.”) Then they’d work until it was time for dinner. If a project required it, after dinner they’d go back to the office and work until 9 p.m. or so.

Martino, who is currently doing a co-op in the neurology department at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and planning to pursue a career in the medical field, says realizing how much he could push himself had one very obvious result: His grades soared the semester after he returned from China.

The students got to know people who were on the surface so different, yet—deep down—shared so many commonalities with them. For instance, Martino, who is a pianist, befriended a Chinese musician who worked at the piano studio where Martino practiced on his day off.

“It’s an international world now,” he says, “and you don’t know whom you’ll be working with, what wonderful cultures you’ll be exposed to.”

Martino reports that his time in China helped him understand global markets. At job interviews, he finds his experience is of great interest to employers.

Yet these are not the most important advan­tages, he says: “The number-one reason to do an international co-op is to gain an open mind about the differences out in the real world—the cultural differences, the living situations, the different beliefs and views on the world.

“It opens your mind up a lot. And that’s power­ful in the workplace.”

Coll, a senior majoring in health sciences, vaccinated children against tetanus and polio in Nicaragua. She plans to attend medical school.

“You adapt to a new environment gradually”
In July 2007, health sciences major Allison Coll flew to Cape Town, South Africa, to begin her first co-op, at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital pediatric burn unit.

Her first day on the job, Coll did her best to keep her cool.

But she was overwhelmed: the sight of a three-month-old African baby with a face turned bright pink by a hot-water burn; the smell of infected wounds; the high temperature inside the hospital, maintained to promote wound healing.

“I tried to be strong, but I had to excuse myself from rounds that morning,” Coll says. “I remember coming home after work feeling disappointed in my ability to adapt to my new work environment.”

Looking back today, Coll, now a senior, sees how far she came in just six months at the unit, where she served as research team leader on a study of how the microbial status of burn wounds affects the subsequent formation of scars.

“My ability to become somewhat desensitized to the horror of children with thirty-five percent body-surface-area burns was a process,” says Coll, who hopes to go on to medical school. “You adapt to a new environment gradually.”

Rather quickly, though, she decided she wanted a lot more global health-care experiences. After just five months back in the States, Coll again headed overseas—this time, to northern India, where she studied traditional medicine and alternative therapies.

Working with medically trained physicians as well as a homeopathic doctor and a ninety-four-year-old Reiki master who taught her about Ayurvedic medicine and acupuncture, Coll learned how diet, exercise, mud therapy, yoga, massage therapy, color therapy, and aroma­therapy can alleviate specific ailments.

“I felt I had to learn about all these different modalities of healing because I hope one day to be a physician who can integrate the ideals of different forms of medicine into a comprehensive treatment,” she says.

This spring, another co-op took Coll to a health clinic in Jinotepe, Nicaragua, where she learned to draw blood, interview patients in Spanish, and perform Pap smears. She also started a support group for diabetes patients, and went door-to-door and school-to-school to vaccinate children, sometimes more than a hundred a day.

“I never knew I’d be so passionate about global health,” she says. “I can only thank North­eastern for giving me the opportunity to explore this avenue. I never know what to expect when I get on a plane, passport in hand and my stomach somewhere near my feet.

“But right around takeoff, I click into game­time mode. All of a sudden, my strength and awareness reach new heights, and I just embrace my commitment to enjoying and being a part of something new.”

“Attitude determines altitude, especi­­ally when you’re starting out in your career,” says Weng, who hopes someday to launch his own global finan­cial-services firm.

“I needed to understand cultural differences”
Jimmy Weng, BA’07, entered Harvard Business School as an MBA student this fall. After he earns his degree, he plans to start a global financial institution that provides investment and advisory services to individuals, corporations, and governments.

More specifically, he hopes to help countries grow their economies, improve standards of living, and establish social enterprises—as he puts it, “to be an effective leader in the government sector, with a staunch belief in good governance and anticorruption.”

A co-op Weng held at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong got him excited about the possibilities in international finance. And taught him a lot.

It even led to a postgraduation job at Morgan Stanley. He worked directly with hedge-fund managers and institutional investors throughout Asia, and traveled frequently to mainland China, where he developed key business relationships.

“I knew an international co-op was going to provide me with a unique perspective on life and yield the most insight on leadership,” says Weng. “Globalization is changing how businesses operate, and I needed to understand cultural differences as well as gain inter­­­national work experience if I wanted to succeed in the field.”

The chance to go to a co-op in Hong Kong was “an exciting move,” he says, “given the lack of opportunities at companies in Hong Kong and China at the time.” Since he spoke Cantonese, he knew he wouldn’t face problems buying food or getting around. “But I knew my lifestyle and perspective would change, and I was determined to make the most of it.”

Weng traveled to ten different cities while he was in China, getting information from local residents, businesspeople, and officials on living and working environments in the different provinces.

Weng’s Morgan Stanley co-op in Hong Kong led to a full-time job after graduation, causing him to postpone entry into Harvard Business School.

“While it was exciting to witness the growth of capitalism in the towering skyscrapers and the modern infrastructure being developed,” he says, “I also saw a lack of opportunities, particularly in western China, where social unrest is rampant.” This got him more interested in learning how government strategy can promote economic and social development.

The budding entrepreneur also noticed how often the depth of a new business’s relationships with clients determines that business’s chances for success.

And there were even more unexpected discoveries. “The most surprising thing about my experience in Hong Kong was realizing how the finance community is really just a small circle,” says Weng. “It literally seemed like everyone knew one another through work, a friend, or a family member.”

Hong Kong can be a notoriously exotic playground. Weng didn’t let that hinder his professional growth. “Going abroad was a test of my maturity in balancing work and personal interests,” he says, “given all sorts of distractions.”

He quickly found his bosses prized employees who emphasized work over social life: “It’s a cliché, but attitude determines altitude, especially when you’re starting out in your career.” Despite the emphasis on work, he says he had plenty of opportunities to enjoy himself and revel in his good fortune.

So, what would he tell other international co-op students? “Rejoice in where you are and what you’re doing, because it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Turner, a self-described “Peace Corps baby,” on co-op in Phrao, Thailand. She worked on microfinance projects for a nonprofit that promotes grassroots community development.

“When you get into their daily lives, they're exactly the same”
Emily Turner graduates in December with a double major in international affairs and political science, and a minor in social entrepreneurship. With all the miles she’s racked up, she could serve as the poster girl for international education at Northeastern.

She’s traveled every year she spent at the university: to Switzerland and Brazil, on trips arranged through Northeastern’s Dialogue of Civilizations program; to Thailand on a six-month co-op; and, this summer, to the Dominican Republic, to work on a micro­finance project through Northeastern’s new Social Enterprise Institute.

Turner, who grew up in Vermont, describes herself as a “Peace Corps baby.” Her father met her mom, a native Filipina, during his Peace Corps stint in the Philippines.

After graduating from high school, Turner decided to travel to Ecuador by herself. Ironically, her parents weren’t so thrilled about that. “I was just eighteen, and I was realizing I was able to do things on my own,” she says. But the trip went great. “I learned Spanish on my own. I made friends. When I got back, my parents were really proud of me.”

At Northeastern, Turner considered every travel opportunity the university offered, including the Dialogue of Civilizations program, which connects the university’s students with students around the globe via faculty-led educational trips.

Perhaps because of her mother, Turner felt a special interest in Asia, so she developed a co-op in Thailand. From July to December 2008, she lived in the Phrao district with a local woman and worked on microfinance projects at a newly established nonprofit.

Now she hopes to work professionally in the microfinance field.

“I think the co-op changed me in ways I didn’t really expect,” says Turner. One of her projects was helping women weavers sell their cloth and scarves in the United States at prices that assured them a decent wage. It was rewarding work.

Yet there were harsh realities, too. The nonprofit, which was launching from scratch, was housed in a cement building with no furniture, chairs, or tables.

For the first few months, Turner sat on the floor as she worked. “We were starting from rock bottom,” she says, “and we went through real challenges.” 

Turner (pictured at far left) first visited Thailand as a teenager, bonding instantly with the people. “Culturally, I felt I belonged in Thailand, among the Budd­hists,” she says. “They really intrigue me.”

But to her surprise, the biggest barriers weren’t exotic—like language difficulties—but quotidian, predictable ones, such as personality clashes and instances of poor leadership.

“They were the everyday problems everyone faces in their work,” Turner says. “The problems you regularly face in an office, compounded by language differences.

“You go to an exotic land, and you think the people will be so different,” she explains. “But when you get into their daily lives, they’re exactly the same.”

At a certain point, relations within the organization got tense, and projects started to suffer from a lack of staff cohesion.

In the nick of time, Turner and her colleagues took a work trip into Thailand’s mountain region, one of the poorest areas of the country. The roads were bad, and the journey was difficult. But it ended up bringing a sense of unity back to the organization.

“At the heart of it, all of us were doing this work because we wanted to help the community,” Turner says. “Interacting with the local people as a group really brought us together.”

They stayed in the mountains several days, working with a tribe of hill people, “the type of people we all wanted to help,” she says.

“We were doing a good thing, which kept us in check,” she continues. “When you’re in the office doing paperwork, you can start to feel kind of distant from what you signed up for in the first place.”

Today, says Turner, she cannot imagine any challenge—anywhere—she could not surmount. Although she’s not sure where her career will take her, she knows it won’t be to some soulless job in an impersonal, gray office building in the United States.

She craves exploration, variety, the chance to see the world and herself more clearly. “There’s really no place I wouldn’t go,” she says.

Elaine McArdle is a freelance writer who is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.