Lucy Polzin, a chemical engineering major, spent her Spring 2024 semester traveling and studying throughout Europe as part of her Global Leadership and Team Decision-Making Minor (GLM) experience.
The GLM is a minor made possible through a partnership between the Shelton Leadership Center and the NC State European Center in Prague. This interdisciplinary and innovative minor is designed to give students from any academic background a competitive edge in the global workforce. The minor also combines coursework with a semester-long study abroad experience, during which students pursuing the minor travel throughout Europe. This year, the students traveled to European cities, including Prague, Munich, Reutlingen, and Nice.
We asked Lucy about her experience in the GLM, and she shared her impact story with us here:
Why did you decide to pursue the Global Leadership Minor?
I decided to pursue the Global Leadership Minor because I thought it was a really good way to learn people skills and important teamwork aspects that I could use in my career that I am not learning in my regular engineering classes. I was also looking for a way to work globally in a world where globalization is becoming more and more common.
How did participating in the GLM enhance your understanding of leadership in global contexts?
I learned during this minor how important it is to have a growth mindset. I think, obviously, it is really important to learn specificities and certain facts about the cultures that you are interacting with. Even more so, it’s important to understand that you need an ongoing curiosity and a need to learn more and get better because you will always be on teams that are changing and growing. You have to anticipate those changes, especially in cross-cultural contexts.
What was your favorite part of the GLM experience?
My favorite aspect of the minor was that we got to actually work with the students from the countries that we visited in the Czech Republic, Germany, and France. This was really cool because not only did we make a lot of really great friends, but we were also practicing what we were learning while we were learning it.
What did you learn both from the coursework and being able to travel abroad during the GLM experience?
While we were participating in the actual coursework, I learned a lot about how to understand my own biases and how to look for biases in others in order to find a middle ground where you can work together.
While we were traveling individually, I learned a lot about myself, what I am capable of, and how to stay comfortable in unfamiliar environments as well as how to take challenges head on as a learning experience rather than something to be scared of.
Why would you recommend this minor to future students?
I would recommend this minor because, obviously, it is really exciting to go abroad and visit so many different countries and meet so many different people. I think what makes this minor special is that you get to learn from both NC State professors but also professors from the countries you are visiting. So, you get the best of both worlds.
I really loved being able to travel with 15 other NC State students. I feel like I made 15 new best friends, and that made the whole experience really easy and something that I will remember forever.
What else would you like to share about your GLM experience?
It can be difficult to find a way to study abroad, especially in a minor like this where you have to take a whole semester off of your major. But I encourage everybody, even if you’re a little bit interested, to really explore the possibility and take the time to talk to a lot of different people. There are a lot of resources at the Shelton Leadership Center and the NC State European Center in Prague.
It was difficult for me to find a way to make it work, but I am so glad that I did because this semester ended up being the best semester of my college experience. And I really hope that others can find a way to do the same.