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Morning walks on weekends with my dog are my favourite walks of the week. It’s a slower pace than the weekday walks and I feel the tranquilness walking through my neighbourhood. The walk I took on the Saturday after I had moved back to Toronto took me by surprise. I was startled by the sounds of passing cars, planes flying overhead, and the rumbling of leaves. What was ambient noise to me before is now heard loud and clear. I questioned if the noise level had always been this high or whether my time away had changed my hearing and my perception. As a Toronto suburb native, I know the noise has always been there and this was in fact an indication that I had a drastic change in perspective during my internship in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

If my research training has taught me anything, it is that both my perceptions before and after are equally valid, just that my point of view (e.g. frame of reference) has changed. When I arrived at WMU in May, I only had my experiences of living, studying and working in the Greater Toronto Area for most of my life. The experience of relocating to a new country by car and living in a city with a population that is a fifth of my west-Toronto suburb contributed greatly to my eye-opening experience. I had the opportunity to sit down with senior leaders in student affairs and academic affairs to learn about their educational and professional experiences, the role of their position/office and the challenges and goals faced by each unit. I had lively dialogue with each staff member sharing our knowledge of the field of higher education based on our jurisdiction. Some of the topics that stood out to me were the wide range of postsecondary access pathways (e.g. high school articulation/dual enrolment courses), sources of financial aid (e.g. institutional, municipal, state, and federal levels of funding), and students from underrepresented groups (e.g. foster family, migrant family, military and veterans, deaf/hard of hearing and visually impaired and blind).

To my surprise, after two and half months at WMU, I felt that I had really gotten to know the ins and outs of the university and the context situated in Michigan. The internship was an intensive crash course in some ways that taught me a new set of educational jargon specific to the US–Midwest and brought to life the challenges and experiences of American higher education that I have read during my coursework at OISE. I think that had my internship taken place in a large metropolitan area and at a large institution comparable to UofT, I might not have gained such nuanced insights into US education systems. This comparative educational and work experience has solidified areas of education research and practice I will continue to work towards not only in the city and province I reside in but on a systemic level nationally and internationally.

Read Susan's first blog - /lhae/about/news/05-27-23-cross-border-internship-program-blog

Read Susan's second blog - /lhae/about/news/06-28-24-cross-border-internship-western-michigan-university-blog-part-2

Susan He is a doctoral candidate in higher education. She is currently an intern at Western Michigan University through LHA1858H hosted by Dr. David Kim and Dr. Ramona Lewis (WMU). Feel free to reach out or suggest topics you want to hear from Susan in future blog updates via email at s.he@utoronto.ca.