International education journey takes new USask graduate to Ottawa

University of Saskatchewan (USask) graduate Kathryn Sawatzky (BA’24) has experienced firsthand the difference that study abroad experiences can make in a post-secondary student’s life.

Sawatzky, who received her Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies with high honours during USask’s 2024 Spring Convocation, continues to appreciate the “life-changing” opportunity she had to travel to Uganda in the summer of 2023. At the time, Sawatzky was an undergraduate student enrolled in a political studies course taught by Dr. Kirsten Fisher (PhD).

“This course looked at transitional justice, which is similar to kind of a reconciliation way of looking at justice,” Sawatzky said.

“It was a really neat opportunity to look at something that I had learned on paper. I had taken classes with Dr. Fisher before, so I was able to look at some of the things that I had discussed in class in a real-life context and see something from not so much of a Western standpoint—learning from people who had actually been affected by political tension in Uganda. It really opened up my eyes to the importance of learning perspectives from people that are different from myself, and the importance of lived experiences and hearing people’s truth as well.”

Sawatzky, who grew up in Kindersley, Sask., now promotes international learning experiences to current USask students through her job as the study abroad coordinator in the College of Arts and Science. Earlier this year, she was honoured to be chosen as one of 15 ambassadors for the Global Skills Opportunity (GSO) program. Funded by Employment and Social Development Canada and administered jointly by Colleges and Institutes Canada and Universities Canada, GSO is a national pilot program that has enabled thousands of Canadian post-secondary students to study abroad and gain skills applicable to their future careers. Sawatzky’s own study abroad course in Uganda was partially funded by the GSO program, leading to her being chosen as a GSO ambassador.

“As a GSO ambassador, I am in charge of advocating for the program’s renewal,” Sawatzky said. “It’s so far sent 12,000 Canadians abroad. We are trying to renew the scholarships so that more Canadian students are able to travel to unfamiliar countries and gain more transferrable skills to come back and make Canada’s workforce more diverse and strong.”

Sawatzky is continually looking for ways to learn more about international education and to share information about study abroad opportunities with USask students. In early November 2024, she was excited to travel to Ottawa to attend the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) conference—a meeting place for international education professionals across Canada and around the world.

“Going to CBIE is really exciting, both from the standpoint of being a GSO ambassador and as the study abroad coordinator,” Sawatzky said, prior to travelling to Ottawa for the Nov. 3 - 6 conference. “I’m excited to network with other professionals in international education, make some new connections, and learn about the global landscape as well as the Canadian landscape—what international education is looking like in other provinces.”

Sawatzky said the GSO program is helping Canadian students—especially those who may face barriers to participation—gain confidence and develop valuable intercultural skills by studying or working abroad. More than 75 per cent of the students who have participated in GSO experiences have identified as being low-income, Indigenous, or having a disability.

GSO is contributing to a more productive Canada by helping regions and industry address specific skill and labour needs, Sawatzky said. She believes experiential learning enables post-secondary students to explore real-world solutions to real-world problems.

“I love seeing students and the transformation that happens to them after they go abroad and come back to USask,” she said.

Sawatzky’s passion for studying abroad as an undergraduate student led to a role as a student ambassador in the College of Arts and Science. That student role then led to full-time employment as the college’s study abroad coordinator after Sawatzky graduated earlier this year. She now works with fellow USask graduate LaVina Watts (BusAdm’08, BA’24), who serves as the manager of the college’s study abroad and interdisciplinary programs.

Sawatzky said pursuing her Bachelor of Arts degree in international studies at USask has helped her in her new career, as her education enabled her to develop important skills and to explore international and global perspectives.

“A lot of the professors that we get to learn from in international studies have had global experiences themselves, and just the fact that it is an interdisciplinary program gives us a chance to learn from lots of different faculty members—so all the way from economics to history to anthropology,” she said. “A lot of those professors have had strong ties in other countries and have even done research in other countries, so we were always encouraged to think of things from many different perspectives.”

One of the things Sawatzky enjoyed about her education at USask was the small class sizes. That enabled rich, thoughtful discussions to emerge amongst the students and instructors.

“Oftentimes I was in classes of maybe 10, sometimes even five, people—so those are really unique conversations that we got to have about global challenges and history and things like that,” she added.

In addition to travelling to Uganda, Sawatzky was also pleased to have the opportunity to explore humanities research as a Bachelor of Arts student. In particular, she appreciated working with transnational historian Dr. Benjamin Hoy (PhD) in the Historical GIS Lab, which unites history and geography to explore change through time and variation across space. Sawatzky said such enriching undergraduate student research opportunities in the humanities make USask unique.

“That opportunity really made me understand the world of humanities research more than I did before,” she said.

“I was able to travel to a conference last year and present some of my own original work and also got my article published in the USURJ (University of Saskatchewan Undergraduate Research Journal), which has really given me a big boost in confidence.

“It’s been an incredible opportunity to examine something further and develop some of my own ideas, which has been really amazing. I think that taking my BA in international studies here at USask has given me a really unique positionality to be able to think globally.”