East Asia Practicum (China & Japan), 2017
At MIIS, I have been introduced to many foci of international education such as program management, intercultural communication, education program development, higher education administration, and student support services and affairs. During my studies at the Middlebury Institute, I have taken courses in Comparative International Education, International Education Policy, and Trade and Security Issues in Asia. With these courses, I have taken interest in researching the impacts of trade agreements on educational policy development, specifically, in the Asian-Pacific Region. In the Trade and Security course, I had the opportunity to do some fieldwork in Tokyo and Beijing researching the prevalence of transnational higher education (TNE), comparing both Japan and China’s utilization of TNE to internationalize a campus and to promote their higher education systems in different countries. The field work conducted gave me the opportunity to talk to policy experts in education. It was an exciting experience and has made my research robust because the different input that was provided. This research was also informative and has given a different perspective to analyze international education. I would like to say that this research was the impetus of my pursuit in a doctorate and I would like to continue to further conduct research in educational policy development and their impacts.
