by Oleksandra Volakova

Cyn Le- the current Multilingual Writing Fellow, who graduated from Wesleyan with a Government major and Global Engagement minor – talks about GEM, how it helped them throughout undergrad studies and after, and why freshmen will benefit from minoring in this.

Q: How would you explain Global Engagement Minor to people who never heard about this? 

Cyn: Global Engagement Minor (further in text – GEM) is a unique academic program that recently replaced an International Relations minor. It’s a great way to push yourself to better understand international events and influences, share how they affect you personally, and how different aspects of your identity shapes your behavior and experiences.

Q: How GEM helped you?

Cyn: I think that the Global Engagement Minor helps to continuously build a solid foundation throughout your years of studying at Wesleyan. Especially after getting to the Senior Capstone and trying to put everything together, GEM experience explains how everything – courses taken, language classes abroad, off-campus culture immersion, plans and desires for the future – fits. 

Q: Was fulfilling the requirements for the minor challenging?

Cyn: I’m a government major, and with the language requirements filled, GEM seemed like a very easy minor that aligned well with my coursework. For people in STEM fulfilling the requirements might be more complicated. 

Q: Should students take their first course asap?

Cyn: When I was a student, we had students of all the years in the intro class because most of them already started fulfilling the requirements without thinking about that. However, right now the rules are different: students must apply to the Global Engagement Minor in the second semester of their first-year. It would always be best to apply and drop it than to not apply and regret it later. 

Q: What does GEM consist of?

Cyn: 

• 2 courses that are unique to GEM – the Introductory Seminar and the Senior Capstone Seminar.

• Language up to intermediate level (if you already know the foreign language – you can prove it without taking additional courses). 
• 4 courses about three different regions of the world. They encourage you to branch out to other areas even if you’re interested in one specific region. If a course talks about a lot of countries – it is technically also equally valid for the minor, but it is better to discuss with your minor advisor whether it would count. 
• Off-Campus Cultural Immersion. To be honest, without taking the minor I wouldn’t be able to study abroad. Because it was a requirement, I managed to go, to South Korea, Seoul, during the summer. As I studied not during fall or spring semester, I did an intensive language program that included studying grammar, writing essays, etc.

Q: How did you learn about GEM?

Cyn: I was encouraged by passionate professors to continue the minor and actually fulfill all the requirements to get it. If you already think about GEM, then you do have an interest. I feel like my classes made more sense after taking that course; I could understand where different threads were connecting regardless of what class I was taking. Actually, I started college with Biology and Calculus, but ended up with Government and Global Engagement Minor. 

Q: How did GEM help you in your career or plans for the future?

The idea of intercultural competence, realizing under what circumstances other people grew up, and how to understand each other were the skills that helped me when I started my job as a Multilingual Writing Fellow. As I started working, I analyzed various research papers about helping international students, and readings from the minor became a solid foundation for my understanding of more complicated concepts. Here I realized that I really enjoy teaching students and encouraging positive multilingual mindsets, so recently applied for several fellowships in Vietnam and South Korea, so hopefully, I will be an English teaching assistant here.

Q: What’s your biggest takeaway from the GEM?

Cyn: Right now we live in a globalized world, so we all are connected and all of us are under similar systems. That’s why Global Engagement Minor does a great job of encouraging students to understand how those systems work and where exactly you fit in this world.