During the Summer of 2025, I studied abroad in Strasbourg, France as a part of the Intercultural Leadership Program at GCSU. The program included two courses, along with excursions to various institutions relating to politics and communications.
The point of this program is to emphasize the importance for ethical-leaders in current and future generations.
The courses I took were Culturology & Cross-Cultural Communication and Sustainable Leadership. After class sessions, our group would go on class trips. Those included: The European Parliament, The Council of Europe, the Euro-Institut, and ARTE, Europe’s culture TV channel.
On this trip, I built life-long friendships, learned about the importance of inter-cultural competence & globalization, and visited three different countries with three different cultural and political norms (France, Germany, and Switzerland). My political science and mass communication background were both highly relevant during this trip.
This experience changed my life and prepared me thoroughly for the skills necessary in my future career.
One of our excursions was the European Parliament. This picture shows all of the flags of the countries who are a part of the European Union.
My study abroad group spent our last day in downtown, Strasbourg. This picture is infront of the Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, which was once the tallest building in the world.
Here are a few images I took along the way:
My group visited Arte, which is a public service broadcasting station that integrates multiple lanugages and cultures into its content as a way to promote cross-cultural communication.
I visited the Louvre in Paris, France, where I saw countless masterpieces that I had previously learned about in history classes. My favorite one was the original Julius Caesar statue.
My classmate and I are pictured here infront of the Assembly Chamber of the Palace of Europe. This organization upholds human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.
During my time in Switzerland, I learned about their highly sustainable lifestyle. Since then, I have integrated a few of these practices into my life.