As the 2018 Global Leadership and Innovation participants settle back into life in their home countries, they’ve had time to think about their time in Bloomington and Washington, D.C. The reflections of these outstanding students demonstrate GLI’s multi-faceted strengths, which range from enhanced critical thinking and teamwork to personal and emotional growth. The program emphasized participants’ ability to effectively share their stories, understand team dynamics based upon personality differences, articulate personal goals, and work around unexpected business dilemmas. They prepared two team presentations over the course of the two-week program, utilizing a consultant-management dynamic which allowed for robust and challenging conversations. Then, the program headed to Washington, D.C. for one week of in-depth panel discussions and experiential learning on issues ranging from the Middle East and North African policy to entrepreneurship.
Yasser Al Rijjal, Jordanian 2016 alumnus, said that he had been able to re-evaluate conventional notions of collaboration throughout this summer’s curriculum. “It has always came to my mind that ‘being the smartest in the room, means you are in the wrong room’, but being in this program and interacting with everyone gave me the chance to realize and to rephrase that quote to ‘You are always in the right room if you know how to connect with people’, having something new added each day and each conversation whether on purpose or not, by having such kind of immersive environment change and development is imminent. And these are the kind of experiences I always seek, life-changing ones.” (more…)