Student Column: Internationalizing Postgraduate Studies
Internationalization has long been an important issue for the ICA. Although the name indicates that the association is per se international, this has not been a given fact on different levels (e.g. awards, fellowships) and internationalization remains one of the priorities for the ICA as the current presidential candidates Amy Jordan and Sharon Strover stress. That an international association should be truly international is out of question, but how international do PhD candidates have to be? And what does internationalization of PhD studies actually mean in different contexts?
I have asked a PhD-student and two postdoc scholars about what it means to be international from their perspective. The three following statements derive from three very different contexts, namely USA, China and Sweden, and are giving some inside into what internationalization of post-graduate studies might be.
What does internationalization mean in an academic setting?
Omar Al-Ghazzi, U Penn
As an international student in the US, I reflect on this question in my everyday experience. In this column, I find myself thinking about this question on three main levels: the personal, the academic, and the structural-institutional.
As a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, I am an international student or that is what I am considered. Although I have been in the US for a number of years, it still sounds strange to claim an identity of being "international". Notably international only means non-American in this US context. Here all non-American nationalities are collapsed into a single category of internationality. However, it remains that some students seem to be categorized as more international than others. The more seemingly "different" a student's background is, the more pronounced his or her "internationalism." Thus, the meaning of international is contextual. While all international students share a legal international visa status, the label of international in everyday discourse can signify the perceived extent of difference. For example, an East Asian or Arab student may be considered more international than a Canadian or a European student. In popular speech, then, international becomes synonymous with the word "other" or "different."
The implicit "othering" of international students in the American academy can be empowering as it gives them the opportunity to bring forth a perspective other than the dominant line of thinking. However, the international researcher faces many challenges -not least the obvious reasons of reading and writing in a nonnative language. On the level of academic research, it is frustrating that most social theory and communication scholarship is of West European and North American origin. However, this frustration drives many students and scholars to make claims about a perspective that is necessarily different. The question of de-Westernizing the academy is one of the most difficult problems to tackle. The balance between shedding light on similarity and difference, truth and relativity, is nearly impossible to strike. As several scholars point out, the claim that a Western theory is not universally-applicable can be as problematic as the counter-claim that a non-Western context is essentially different. The result is that both approaches, regardless of their original intent, keep "the West" at the center of their arguments. However, despite the difficulty of the mentioned balance, there is a pressing need to give voice to diverse and multiple perspectives if we are to understand global communication processes.
Importantly, the debate also cannot remain on the theoretical level, as we also need to reflect on what meanings "internationalization" takes on the structural and institutional levels. For example, scholarly institutions such as UPenn Annenberg have internationalized by supporting a diverse group of international students and faculty, and also providing opportunities for conducting global communication research and engaging with international conferences. In this sense, being international is costly business and is more about institutions than individuals. With this in mind, it is important for ICA and the field of Communication in general to internationalize by giving institutions from across the world the opportunity to take part in the academic conversation, to ask different kinds of questions, and to bring forth fresh approaches to academic theory and practice. This could be done through fostering cooperation and exchange opportunities with universities around the world and also through holding conferences in more diverse international locales. Thus, despite the multiple meanings that internationalization can acquire, I think it is without doubt an essential undertaking required for the field of Communication. It is worth remembering that much more work should be done if ICA is to deserve the "I" in its acronym.
Chinese Perspective on Internationalization of PhD Programs
Dan Ji, Shanghai Jiaotong U
In contemporary societies internationalization becomes increasingly important, especially for our educational system and the increasing internationalization of PhD programs is a significant sign in the changing educational system on a global level.
Definitions
Different people have different views about the definition of internationalization in the context of PhD programs. In my opinion two points are crucial here: The first one takes an individual perspectives and refers to the fact that young scholars pursing PhD studies are increasingly engaging in international activities and short as well as long term stays abroad. The second one is situated on the institutional level and refers to the internationalization of educational philosophy, academic standard, scientific research and perspective.
Benefits
I think there are three main advantages of internationalization for academic careers in China. Firstly, the internationalization of PhD programs will supply more opportunities for PhD candidates to build a network outside the home universities. Many leading universities in the world have become more open to international scholars following the aim to internationalize their own environments and attracting the best scholars. These increased possibilities to study abroad will give students more knowledge, greater experiences and more chances to get involved in debates, they are passionate about.
Secondly, the internationalization of the PhD programs encourages talents from different cultural backgrounds to communicate with each other, broaden their own prospects and establish supportive friendships.
Thirdly, the internationalization of the PhD programs will improve the PhD candidates' competitiveness. Internationalization not only encourages the communication between students from different countries, but also stimulates the cooperation among students from the same country while triggering their motivation.
Risks
Although the internationalization of the PhD programs brings many benefits to PhD candidates, there are also some potential risks.
Firstly, the PhD candidate in an internationalized program might become the cash cow. At some universities supervisors recruit students from abroad working merely within their projects, but not offering them the possibilities to develop their own research interests. The PhD student is then considered cheap labour, but has very limited possibilities to develop the own career.
Secondly, and this is a risk for the country and the university that the PhD student is leaving behind, is the problem of brain drain. Being abroad might change not only professional, but also private coordinates motivating the PhD student to stay in the host country rather than returning and contributing with the achieved knowledge to the environment there.
In that sense, internationalization has both advantages as well as disadvantages. However, I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Hence, program coordinators and universities should be actively working with the internationalization of PhD programs.
Internationalization of PhD Programs in China
In China, there are several programs to support the PhD candidates to study abroad. Among these funding opportunities, the scholarship program by China Scholarship Council (CSC) is the biggest one. Every year about 6000 top Chinese PhD students are encouraged to study at elite universities in different countries. The students are selected according to very strict standards to go to countries such as USA, UK and other western countries. Most of them come back with huge achievements in terms of learning and connectedness. However, there are some students that are having a hard time to participate in the structures of the host university.
One of the biggest obstacles is the language barrier. Many Chinese students lack an efficient level of English before they go abroad. In order to prepare PhD students for their stay abroad, they are offered several months of language training, which is often only of little help. The scholarship funding is of course also limited. While students need several months to develop the required language skills and cultural knowledge to fully participate in the activities of the host university, their time is too short to fully utilize their acquired skills. From that point of view, language is the major problem in the course of the internationalization of PhD programs in China.
'Going international' and work/life (im)balances: reflections from a doctoral student perspective
Tina Askanius, Lund U
Last year, I was asked to do give a talk in a conference workshop on the challenges of combining life with small kids with the increasing demands of internationalisation, mobility and flexibility that PhD students face today. At the time, I was in the final stages of completing my PhD and in the middle of a deep wrenched crisis. The only solutions that came to mind at the time was 1) selling my children to the highest bidder or 2) quit academia for good and never look back. I actually had to sign an agreement with my supervisor saying that I would do neither - at least before submission deadline. Further, in the weeks prior to the conference talk I had just been forced to say no to what I felt at the time was the most important conference ever: a full program on the topic of my thesis, held in Buenos Aires where I had always wanted to go and I had been accepted. But due to logistical problems of finding someone who could help with the kids for such a long trip I had to say no. In other words, the self-loathing and self-pity was at its highest.
The eidetic memory of this state of mind is the reason why I added (im) to balances in the title. Indeed, the demands to be mobile and engaged internationally are very hard to reconcile with having a relatively stable family life. Yet, these challenges should not put off candidates from pursuing an academic career or from having children.
It is of course very hard it to give advice or even just to share experiences that make sense to everyone, regardless of which country they are doing their PhD. As doctoral students, we work under extremely different conditions across the world: Some of us pay huge amounts of money to go through grad school and some of us are paid - if not huge amounts of money then - at least a considerable salary. To disregard these structural differences would make it very easy to come across as an arrogant Scandinavian who forgets her privileged position when moaning about the hardship of making ends meet. Also, to be able to travel and engage in international activities and networks and have small children at the same time obviously requires living in a country that actually allows for both parents (of perhaps especially mothers) to work full time, a well fare structure where the public day-care system is well functioning and affordable. This is very far from being the case on an international level.
Therefore, with all of these reservations and opt-outs there is one key argument and two pieces of concrete advice that I would like to pass on to doctoral students in whatever stage of their career.
First of all, I want to argue that it is possible to have an international orientation without fully conforming to the ideals of intellectual globetrotting. You do not need to attend every single conference out there or necessarily spend longer periods abroad as a visiting scholar. There are plenty of shorter events and networks to engage in that make it possible to connect with people outside of your own department and comfort zone.
The first very concrete advice is to attend summer schools. In a European context, the ECREA network organises an excellent 2 weeks summer school that offers invaluable feedback and friendships in a crucial phase of the thesis work.
The second advice is to 'go international' on your own home turf. Get involved in any potential internationalisation committee in your university. Engage in the organisation of international conferences, seminars and workshop in your own department. This could entail anything from co-organising conferences, organising international days for staff or workshops on international publishing, inviting international guest lectures for your classes, facilitating stays for visiting professors etc. While these kind of activities obviously entail a lot of hard work and steal time and energy from the thesis process, the efforts you put into these matters are worthwhile and will pay off once you have crawled up on the other side of the thesis trench!