Hi there, my name is Trevor Finney and I am currently a senior at the University of Montana!

I spent this past semester studying abroad in Nottingham, England with the goal of learning more about green business and sustainability within supply chains. I wanted to better understand how businesses can evolve in the face of climate change and operate more efficiently and environmentally friendly. I was able to take courses in logistics, business strategy, and China’s global economy, all of which had elements discussing the steps companies are taking to innovate in the name of sustainability. Furthermore, guest lecturers in my courses were able to provide insight on European trade

 I was also lucky enough to travel to several countries such as Denmark, France, and Ireland to explore all the wonders that Europe has to offer.

My experience abroad and engagement with the different cultures of students who lived in the residence hall with me has given me a new perspective on how culture shapes our relationship with the environment as well as the importance of learning from people outside one’s bubble. For example, there is more social pressure to be environmentally responsible in the U.K. and Sweden, it is a social contract like waiting in queue. A good example is how when you go grocery shopping in downtown Nottingham (or Dublin), most people bring reusable bags as it costs ten pence for each plastic one you have to buy. Furthermore, many people walk to the grocery store, so your bags have to be durable enough for the trek home. I really appreciated the bag tax as an economics major as it is a proven incentive to get people to engage in more socially and environmentally responsible behavior, and the shame of noncompliance does not hurt either.  

It is also easier to live greener in Europe as public transport is everywhere, affordable, and accessible. In Nottingham there is an electric tram that runs through all of town daily, connecting city to suburb. Talking with my fellow flat mates, I confirmed what I had suspected, most cities in Europe have incredible public transit whether it is HamburgHamburg or Copenhagen. I think Americans like myself can learn a lot from talking with people from diverse perspectives when it comes to sustainability as we clearly don’t need to reinvent the wheel, rather just look at what has been proven to be an effective solution. I also found that the students I met from Italy live greener lives, but it isn’t with great effort, it’s simply apart of their lifestyle and culture. For example, they spoke of how some apartments do not have clothes dryers, air conditioning, or limitless amounts of hot water and thus you live a more practical, energy conserving life. With smaller fridges and cars that get double the mileage of even the best hybrid, Italians carb footprints are much smaller than those of Americans, and even the Brits. When it comes to the Netherlands, my Dutch friend told me about how as a small country there is a lack of space for new landfills, implying the need to be conservative and efficient with waste management, instilling in the culture a sensibility when it comes to disposables like single use plastics, one that I find  we often lack in the U.S.

In terms of leadership skills, you might be shocked to know that absolutely no one participates in class discussions in the U.K. My American friend Cole and I would sit in a lecture hall of a hundred students and watch as everyone said nothing until we felt compelled to give the lecturer an answer just to break the silence. It may’ve just been my three courses, but I definitely had to get used to feeling weird for speaking up. Participation isn’t necessarily “leadership” but I also led group discussions and group projects. I did not mind it because it gave me a chance to ask questions about attending university in England and what it’s like to not have to pay hardly anything for school. I did develop in my ability to independently plan a trip and navigate French cities with only two semesters of classes.

One cultural difference that may be attributed to being in a city instead of a small town like Missoula is that every night of the week is a party night. Nottingham has a vibrant nightlife with dozens of clubs, and I’d always head home around midnight only to be awoken at three in the morning by the drunken chatter of inebriated lads. One of the best nights I had in the U.K. was a trip to Scotland where we went on a bar crawl, and for the sake of embracing the local culture, we drank a fair amount of local scotch. I also enjoyed Scotland for the beautiful architecture of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the stunning landscape.

P.S: News flash to me, an American, Trevor is not a common English name; it is actually considered antiquated.

My name is Liam Hauck, I am a marketing major and my global theme is Natural Resources and Sustainability.  For my beyond the classroom experience I chose to study abroad at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia.  I was looking forward to learning more about the theme of Natural resources and Sustainability while I was in Australia.  Climate change has had a significant impact on Australia. The Great Barrier Reef is continuously being negatively impacted by climate change and I arrived in Melbourne just as the last of the severe bush fires were being put out.  So, it seemed like there was a lot to learn from Australia in terms of natural resources and sustainability and how the natural world can challenge a nation’s sustainable practices.  

            However, it was only about two weeks into my semester abroad that I had to return back home to Seattle to finish my studies online due to COVID shutdowns.  Fortunately, I had arrived in Melbourne about a month before my program started and I got to stay with my Uncle who lives in Melbourne.  During this time I was able to explore Melbourne, see Elton John perform, and even took a week-long trip down to Queenstown, New Zealand (where I got to skydive)

            The majority of the times where I found myself growing as a leader and simply as a person were when I had to continue my studies online back in Seattle.  I left Australia on March 26^th and finished my semester on June 15^th.  All of my classes had to be attended live via Zoom, in Australia time.  Which meant that most of my classes were at night, with the latest class starting at 9 pm and ending at 11 pm.  It was very hard to find the motivation and fortitude to attend these classes and do all the work at late hours.  Yet I persevered and worked as hard as I could through those 2 ½ months of late nights and I certainly developed skills that I will take with me into my professional career.  While this experience of course was not the one I wanted, it was the crazy one that I got. I am definitely thankful for the time that I had down under.

First, some questions answered 

Where: The University of Jyväskylä in Jyväskylä, Finland 

Wait…where: About three hours by train north of Helsinki 

Was it cold and dark: Yes

Did you learn any Finnish: A little bit (I am especially good at saying “En puhu suomea” or “I don’t speak Finnish”) 

Löyly, Avanto, and Sisu. 

Sauna culture was something I looked forward to exploring while in Jyväskylä and I was pleased to learn that Kortephoja, my student living complex, boasted a proud five saunas. It is also important to clarify that the correct pronunciation is sow-na, because the Finns know best. Learning about Finnish sauna culture meant embracing löyly, the steam that rises off the rocks in the sauna when water is splashed on them, and avanto, the practice of dipping into a hole in the ice.

Taking multiple sauna turns a week meant time for long conversations with friends. More adventurous sauna experiences included running into the Arctic Ocean in Norway while a Finnish bus driver yelled at me to put me head fully under the water; this gets one closer to the Finnish concept of sisu. Sisu is comprised of determination, grit, and resilience and is said to express the Finnish national character. Choosing an exchange experience in college means choosing to embrace sisu (and saunas, if one finds themself in Finland). 

Are you the one who needs a violin?

After my first day of classes I plodded through the dark, the sun set at 3:30, without an instrument, my violin was safe at home in Montana, towards the music building, a twenty-minute walk from my apartment. Groups of musicians have a certain buzz about them, and that night was no exception. Timpani drums were tuned, a saxophonist played a scale, and rosin was applied to bows as I quietly stood in the corner and observed. As the symphony tuned, a trombonist emerged beside me and asked, “are you the one who needs a violin?” I was offered her grandfather’s violin for me to borrow. I lovingly nicknamed the violin ‘Pavo’, after violin’s original owner, and slipped into my spot in the second violins.

As the only exchange student in Sinfis, the student symphony, I found it refreshing to be around only Finnish students. Works by Grieg, Mendelssohn, Bizet, and Saint-Saëns were the soundtrack for those three-hour Monday evening practices. The rehearsals were conducted all in Finnish, but I quickly learned “yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä” (one, two, three, four) as the count to begin as a symphony. My ever-patient stand partner, Rita, spent hours leaning over to me and whispering what measure number we were rehearsing each time the conductor offered a direction. While our final concert was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those hours spent making music remain some of the ones I am proudest I spent during my exchange. 

Brunch

Because my roommates and I had the largest apartment, it was decided that we would host brunch. Miriam and I pulled out the desks from our room to make the dining room table longer. Shannon took muffins out from the oven while her ‘brunch’ playlist played out of her phone. Sienna stood ready at the door to hop in the dangerously small elevator and let our friends into our building.

About once every two weeks this was our ritual. Gathering for a meal with friends from Spain, France, Hong Kong, Madagascar, and Russia meant lots of food, conversation, and laughter. Our earnest interest in building lasting friendships was born out of these meals together and has continued since. In late March when the composition of our study abroad experience was altered due to the global pandemic – this group of friends rallied in an impressive way. When universities called some of us home, others showed up to clean the entire apartment top to bottom while we packed. Our last hodge-podge meal all together was composed of only desserts and food we had purchased in an attempt to use up our food stipend for that month (can’t let good euros go to waste). Though I spent half the amount of months I had planned to with this friend group, we’ve stayed connected: reminding each other of inside jokes, bi-weekly zoom calls, and plans to see each other have kept the spirit of our brunches very alive.  

Cultures don’t meet, people do 

With a focus on the global theme of culture and politics I tried to construct my schedule at the University of Jyväskylä around these large concepts. As a Communication Studies major I had never previously studied intercultural communication. The University of Jyväskylä specializes in instruction and research in this field. I took multiple courses with an underlying focus on intercultural communication. My main take away from these courses, and my time outside of the classroom in and around Jyväskylä, was an awareness of the simplifications we tend to make when we take about intercultural communication.

One of my most impactful instructors at the University of Jyväskylä took a critical view on commonly held beliefs about intercultural communication and borrowed a subtitle from a book by Hoffman and Verdooren to remind her students that “cultures don’t meet, people do.” This lesson was solidified around a table constructed out of desks, while rehearsing music I understood in a language I did not, and in a cedar plank sauna in the Artic Circle. 

Hei, jeg heter Madeline og jeg bodde i Oslo, Norge i seks måneder. Hi, my name is Madeline and I lived in Oslo, Norway for the last six months. 

Having only been back “state-side” it is difficult to look back on my time abroad with perspective. Norway has always meant a lot to me. Growing up, my family made a lot of traditional Norwegian food and even attended an annual “Norway Day” celebration in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When I return home for winter break one of the first things my mom and I do is make a large patch of fresh lefse for the holidays. Lefse is a thin potato tortilla that we like to eat with butter and cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. 

In Norway, friends told me they no longer knew anyone who made fresh lefse. Everyone just bought it in from the store, premade. I had spent my whole life learning about Norway and hearing stories from family members who had visited. 

It sounds obvious now, but I quickly learned that my family was practicing traditions that had been passed down from family members that had immigrated to the United States more than 100 years ago. But, I have also found that many Americans have an outdated view of Norway, if they’ve even heard of the Nordic country. While many Norwegians live on farms in beautiful fjords raising sheep and knitting, Norway is also a powerful oil country that leads Europe in multiple fields including environmental innovation. 

I was also amazed to learn that many students are heavily involved in one of the country’s eight political parties. Every one of my new Norwegians friends were involved and attended climate marches, held offices in the student union and helped organize large events for nonprofits. This is much different from my experience at home. In high school, very few were even knowledgeable about politics. Meanwhile, at my university, many of my friends are politically active in both political parties and local nonprofits, but I wouldn’t say that’s the norm for the student body.

Within Europe, Norway is frequently regarded as a country that other countries should aspire to be. Their progressive environmental and social policies have made them a leader. And even though many believe the country to be a leader, citizens continue to demand more from their governments. In March, I stood outside Stortinget, translated to “the big thing” aka Norway’s parliament building, with nearly 20,000 Norwegians chanting “Fjerne Erna!” or “remove Erna,” referring to Erna Solberg, the Norwegian prime minister. We were gathered outside the parliament building to demand action on climate change from the leader of the ruling conservative party. Norway, at the time, had been discussing beginning to drill for oil in Australia and the Arctic. 

I was inspired by a country full of people that recognized the great life they got to live in Norway and how different that often made them from the rest of the world. But they didn’t allow that to make them complacent, they continued to push for equality and justice.

As someone who has been in climate change work for just over three years our slow progress, and sometimes regression, has been hard to watch. The time we have left to turn this climate crisis around is quickly shrinking. It’s traveling to places around the world whether it is Vietnam, like I did last January, or Norway I am reassured when I see the people who are doing the work around the world. 

Norwegians gave me more hope for our future and our ability to at least slow down the climate crisis that is quickly making the Earth uninhabitable for humans as we do now. There connectedness to the environment was inspiring and their kindness towards one another was moving.

As I go into my capstone experience I am filled with hope that we can shift the American consciousness towards being environmentally aware and politically active for the environment. That was important for me as I had been spending some time feeling dejected with the current regression in American environmental policy. 

Global Theme & Challenge

Before beginning my study abroad adventure, I had always been interested in the dynamics between social inequality and human rights. Does an unstable society promote abuses of human rights or is it more community based? Because of the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, Asia and Africa, I wanted to see for myself the balance between individual freedoms and human rights, and social order and justice. More specifically, how have governments reacted to the crisis and what are the public’s perception of proposed or implemented policies?

My Experience 

From the moment I landed in Athens, Greece I knew this was a culture I had never experienced before. The way individuals spoke to one another on the street, how newspapers addressed current political issues, the way advertisements were represented on the sides of buses, and the dilapidation of abandoned buildings scattering the neighborhood, all showed signs of distress and disrepair. I knew before coming to Greece that the country was in a state of poverty and unrest, but I was not expecting it to be this noticeable. Homeless and mutilated individuals flooded commercial and shopping districts begging for food and money. Unaccompanied children ran through the streets selling cheap goods, such as balloons and flowers. Abandoned and stray animals, such as cats and dogs, littered the neighborhoods in the thousands. Due to the extreme poverty of Greek citizens, their outlook and willingness to aid refugees was mainly negative. Even when I traveled to other European countries, the opinions on the impact refugess presented in the economy, was pessemistic. Many believed refugees were biologically inferior and stole jobs from hard-working citizens. Of course, I could find no data to support these claims, but countries where Catholisism and Orthodox Christianity strongly practiced, these false views followed. I believe this to be a result of past experiences where the Church used religion to codemn “inferior” races of people and other minority groups such as women and the GSD (gender and sexualy diverse) community. During my time abroad, I never saw noticeably gay or transsexual individuals on the streets and during International Women’s Day, Greece was absent in holding any parades or marches in favor of women’s rights. I was later informed that the country, being Greece, had never held pride or women’s marches and many people, including women, felt that it was unnessesary to do so. Because of this I noticed how aggressive Greek men were to women, including myself and my roommates, and how there was an underlying sexist attitude in almost all conversation. Due to my personal experience, I believed and continue to believe that there are many human rights issues in Greece and other European countries, and that these primarily stem from social inequality. In the future, I hope to see Greece move in a more progressive direction. 

Comforting a 2 day old, abandoned and injured puppy we found at the beach in Athens

A heading from the NY Times in April, 2018 outlining the turmoil between Greek citizens and refugee migrants

Greek Orthodox church on campus grounds