The Hansen Summer Institute on Leadership and International Cooperation is an annual three-week long fellowship hosted at the University of San Diego, California. Participants include over 20 youth leaders from conflict-stricken countries from around the world like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan. The idea behind the fellowship is to formulate channels of communication and international cooperation between the youth of different countries, by building their leadership skills and providing them a better cultural understanding to help form a peaceful future. For my (Salman’s Hansen) alumni profile see https://www.hansensummerinstitute.org/alumni/salman-tahir-pakistan/.

Expectations and opportunities

I got the opportunity to participate in this program during the summer of 2014. At that time I had graduated from my bachelor’s degree and was trying the figure out what to do next in life. Therefore, the prospect of this fellowship seemed the golden ticket for me to develop my professional skillset and to acquaint myself with a global community of like-minded young leaders. However, my expectations had barely scratched the surface of what this program was actually going to be like.

Team-Building, Leadership and Communication

On day one of the programme, I found myself standing at the top of a 30-foot pole and I was given the task to jump off and grab a trapeze in mid-air. This exercise was accompanied by rope and obstacle courses that allowed us to understand how our behavior affected overall communication, teamwork and leadership. In doing these exercises, I learnt how to adapt my behavior so that it would match more effectively with the communication and leadership style of my team members. I also acquired skills on how to interact with my team during conflict and stress situations. These experiential learning techniques taught us how to build effective teams, manage conflicts and conquer our fears when faced with seemingly impossible tasks. Our communication and public-speaking skills were further enhanced by trainings held by extraordinary motivational speakers who believed that education, information and communication can make a difference in breaking down global and political boundaries. Overall, these activities and workshops emphasized the importance of experiential learning, proving that the best way to learn something is by doing it.

Global Affairs and International Conflicts

The most valuable takeaway from this program was meeting some of the most inspiring people from around the world and hearing their stories about how conflict had affected their lives. In fact, during the time of this programme, the world was experiencing many armed conflicts like the Israel Gaza conflict, the Russian Ukrainian conflict, the Iraqi Civil War and the Syrian War. Since many of the fellows were from such conflict-affected countries, I was able to get a social perspective about the ground realities of such armed conflicts, something which is not adequately addressed in the media coverage of wars.

The resilience and strength of my young peers in the face of such adversities inspired me to say the least. It had a deep and meaningful impact on how I perceived international conflicts; rather than viewing them as mere political issues, I started paying more attention to how they affected societies and their everyday life. Also, for the first time in my life, I understood the true nature of destruction brought upon by wars: it lays waste to civilizations, cultures and brings physical and ontological insecurity to thousands of innocent families. However, the Hansen fellowship also brought me hope that the current generation of young leaders can build a better future full of open-mindedness, tolerance and peace. From that time on, I believed that the idea of international cooperation cannot be limited to relationships between states; it is equally important to build bridges between different societies, to make efforts to understand different cultures and realize the importance of preserving the heritage of these cultures.

Impact on my teaching at the BA International Studies

The Hansen fellowship trained me in numerous skillsets that I now employ in my approach to teaching at International Studies. The success of experiential learning techniques during Hansen led me to employ Active Learning Strategies that would stimulate the learning process for my students by making them direct participants in the tutorials. I try to promote critical thinking by using case studies in active learning strategies as a teaching method. Case studies help trigger the cognitive processes of the students and when these are taught through active learning strategies, it not only helps students to retain information but also to analyze it. I also encourage my students to analyze contrasting academic perspectives and different sides of an argument, so that they get a better idea about various outlooks of empirical realities in relation to their theoretical foundations.

My advice to students would be to do things that are outside your comfort zone, travel to other countries and interact with people from different cultural backgrounds. Eventually you will realize that international exposure is not just about visiting different countries, but rather about the people you meet along the way.