“Wherever you go, go with all your heart,” is a saying attributed to the Chinese philosopher, Confucius.
Rising junior Emma Keene is the living embodiment of that saying.
As a nursing student at Indiana University Northwest, she never imagined that she would be able to travel to China—and on an IU Northwest scholarship, no less. But that is exactly what she did earlier this summer through the campus’s study abroad program.
Keene says she was sitting in a class when she received an email aimed at, she assumed, business students. It advertised a 12-day trip to China for students from IU Northwest, as well as other IU campuses. She replied immediately and, before she knew it, she was on a journey that changed how she viewed everything.
“I loved it! I want to go back to China next year,” she said. In fact, Keene has already found classes in China next summer to help her learn the language.
For a student like Keene, this trip could not have been a better fit. Her career goals after graduating are to become a travel nurse and serve in Asian countries, like China or Korea.
“As an international travel nurse, you have to know the language really well,” Keene said. Adding that international travel nurses are very important, especially in major Asian cities, because of tourists who speak English and need assistance translating medical issues accurately.
“I was really happy to find out there were international travel opportunities, especially to an Asian country, open to students attending a regional campus,” she said. She had often heard of trips to Europe but always dreamed of visiting Asia.
Even with a major in nursing, Keene was not the only student from a health and human services discipline, said Diana Chen Lin, IU Northwest Professor of History and one of two faculty members who accompanied the students on the trip.
“We had 10 total students,” she said. “Their majors varied between health and human services, social work, business and arts and sciences disciplines, such as communications, biology, chemistry and anthropology.”
But the one thing that set this group apart, said Lin, was their upbeat attitude. “They were extremely enthusiastic about the trip. Ready to learn and explore,” she said.
To prepare, all students did a significant amount of reading and research about China and the Chinese culture before they traveled abroad, Lin said.
For Keene, it was more than just seeing the sights, but something deeper. She said she has cultivated a group of friends online from China and has practiced sending texts in Chinese, which she’s now able to do better than actually speaking the language.
But an additional bonus: this trip was made possible due to the generous scholarship support that Keene and others received from various philanthropic IU donors, which helped cover most of the trip’s costs.
“I am extremely grateful to the donors who were so generous,” Keene expressed. “Because of them, I was able to experience another culture, have my eyes and mind opened to different ways of life, and discover my true passion and profession is likely nursing in an Asian country.”
Lin is grateful that Keene realized so much about herself and her future in such a short period.
“One of the things traveling abroad will do is expand students’ horizons,” she said, which is one of the primary reasons this study abroad experience was first established.
“It’s good for our students to see how people connect and how people are related. Overall, it creates a formative framework,” she added. “Even a short trip, like ours, forms some kind of framework.”
And, as a well-known Chinese proverb says: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
