As education abroad professionals, we aspired to address a common issue of better serving our returned study abroad students in a collaborative, financially viable and meaningful way. In 2008, “Lessons From Abroad” was born as a team of dedicated and passionate volunteers launched the first west-coast collaborative returnee conference at UC Berkeley. More than 100 study abroad alumni spent the day in guided conversation with their peers and international educators from around the region about what it means to be a returnee and how study abroad has shifted their future aspirations.
The need for this type of collaboration was so great and the Lessons From Abroad model was so sound that, in 2009, leaders from San Diego launched the returnee conference in Southern California utilizing the Lessons From Abroad brand, design and curriculum. By 2010, Lessons From Abroad was a statewide force amongst education abroad professionals and the students for whom the conference served.
Today, six years later, we have run seventeen (17) Lessons From Abroad conferences across the state of California from San Diego to Los Angeles to Northern California. We saw “Lessons” in Nebraska in 2012, the Rocky Mountain Region and Washington in the Spring of 2013 and it’s heading to Central Texas, Oklahoma, Chicago and Missouri in the Fall of 2013! More than 1,700 students have participated in Lessons From Abroad conferences and approximately 250 professionals have volunteered their time in conjunction with the conference.
Lessons From Abroad Conferences (2008-present)
- SF Bay Area, University of California at Berkeley, Feb 2008
- SF Bay Area, University of San Francisco, Feb 2009
- San Diego, Point Loma Nazarene University, Feb 2009
- SF Bay Area, St. Mary’s College of Moraga, Feb 2010
- San Diego, Point Loma Nazarene University, Feb 2010
- LA Area, Chapman University, Nov 2010
- San Diego, University of California – San Diego, Feb 2011
- SF Bay Area, City College of San Francisco, Feb 2011
- LA Area, Chapman University, Nov 2011
- San Diego, University of California – San Diego, Feb 2012
- SF Bay Area, San Francisco State University, Mar 2012
- SF Bay Area, San Francisco State University, Oct 2012
- Nebraska, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Oct 2012
- LA Area, Loyola Marymount University, Nov 2012
- Washington State, Seattle Pacific University, Feb 2013
- San Diego, San Diego State University, Feb 2013
- Rocky Mountain Region, Auraria Campus, Feb 2013
- Nebraska, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Sept 2013
- Central Texas, Texas A&M University, Sept 2013
- Chicago, DePaul University, Sept 2013
- Oklahoma, Oklahoma City University, Sept 2013
- SF Bay Area, TBD, Sept 2013
- Missouri, University of Missouri – Columbia, Oct 2013
- LA Area, University of Southern California, Nov 2013
- Rocky Mountain Region, TBD, Feb 2014