‘A window to the world’: the challenges and benefits of transnational joint Masters programmes for internationalising the curriculum

Bamford, Jan (2015) ‘A window to the world’: the challenges and benefits of transnational joint Masters programmes for internationalising the curriculum. In: Critical perspectives on internationalizing the curriculum in disciplines: reflective narrative accounts from business, education and health. Sense Publications, Netherlands.

Abstract

In this chapter I provide a glimpse into the ‘lived reality’ of staff and students involved in joint Masters degrees offered in two countries. The programmes I discuss required students studying Business - specifically, Marketing Communications, Tourism and Finance - to study in both the UK (London) and the Poitou region of France. In telling this story, I am drawing on 10 years experience as the International Student Coordinator for a Business Faculty with a responsibility for developing internationalisation. In this role I did not teach but my position afforded me a unique perspective on students’ experiences of this type of internationalised curriculum, that is, the joint Masters. Being involved in programme coordination gave me an insight into the multiple challenges that such programmes present as well as the huge potential they offer students for growth and learning. One observation, which I will develop further in this chapter is that my colleagues and I began with the erroneous expectation that cultural learning would happen by osmosis once students took up the opportunity to study in two countries. We came to recognise how wrong this was! The challenges we encountered encouraged me to research the experiences of students and staff in these programmes as well as develop workshops that would facilitate cultural orientation and intercultural learning.

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