Having worked as an International Relations specialist for over 20 years, I am fortunate to have been able to regularly travel abroad. This has become a great passion of mine, from taking high-speed rail around South Korea to watch K-League football, walking wild sections of the Great Wall of China, watching a lunar eclipse on a beach in Goa, to geeking out on anime in the Akihabara precinct of Tokyo.

On my first solo adventure overseas, I went on semester-length undergrad exchange to Keimyung University in South Korea. I left for Korea as a cocky Arts student who thought he knew it all, but the experience humbled me and ultimately turned out to be the seminal learning experience of my life. It also illuminated my pathway to a career as a Northeast Asia specialist as an International Relations professional.

This is what I learned on that trip…

• Comparative thinking: My world enlarged exponentially by experiencing Korean society and culture, and having a basis for comparison with Australian society back home.
• Cultural literacy: Through making friends with Koreans and other exchange students from around the world, I gradually understood how to value cultural differences and how to navigate reality through the prism of another language.
• Empathic thinking: The culture shock initially hit me hard, helping me appreciate how difficult it would have been for my family members when they migrated to Australia, and how challenging it is for people migrating to Australia today.
• Politics and history: Experiencing first-hand the regimentation and militarisation of South Korean society, I came to understand the gravity of inter-Korean relations, the Cold War, and East Asian regional security.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but what I learned in Korea as an exchange student back in 2002 are actually core skills for an International Relations professional. If you can combine an understanding of politics an history with comparative thinking, cultural literacy and empathy, you will have the basic tools necessary to interrogate any case study and succeed in a career in IR.

Questions to think about

1. Have you travelled abroad? If so, where?
2. What did you discover about yourself and the world from your travel experiences?
3. If you migrated to Australia, what has the experience of settling in a new country taught you?

There’s so much to learn from our collective travel experiences. The wisdom of our group is greater than the sum of our parts.

* This posting is a thought activity shared with students taking the unit ‘Comparative Politics’ in the Security and International Relations program at Swinburne Online.