Students interested in a unique opportunity for short-term study abroad should explore the Global Residency Program in the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM). The program takes students from across the university to various world capitals after a four-week online course.
The program’s director, Natalia Dinello, said the GSPM program, which is housed in the College of Professional Studies, is focused on experiential learning about politics and policies. Though the program is designed for graduate students, exceptions can be made for talented undergraduates.
“The courses and associated in-country programs seek to empower and prepare current and future professionals for success and leadership in engagement with foreign environments. Students also develop their relations with international counterparts,” Dinello said. “Our school is a professional school, so we are focused particularly on applied and experiential knowledge.”
Often with strategic assistance from GW alumni and other partners in a given country, students meet with high-level officials in various branches of government. The program offers three residencies each year, in the fall, summer and spring semesters. In 2024, residencies were offered in the UK; in Brussels, to focus on the European Union; and in Mexico. This semester, over spring break, the program will bring students to Berlin, Germany. Dinello and Jessilyn Larsen, GSPM program associate, are planning a trip to Brazil for this summer and to Spain in the fall.
“We arrange the timing of the trips to make it as comfortable and convenient for students as possible,” Dinello said. “We travel during the exam week at the very end of the fall semester, and in the spring, we travel over the spring break. The summer program is in August.”
A four-week course prepares students for their trip. Each week has its own theme, beginning with history, so that students will have key reference points when they arrive. The focus in the second week is on governance and political leadership; in the third, political institutions are closely examined; and in the fourth week, students gain a more general view of the country’s current challenges and opportunities. Each week culminates in the completion of a written assignment.
For the assignment on history, students choose a particular historical period from the country’s past and then relate it to the present, both in the region and the world.
During the second week, students research a contemporary leader, such as President Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico or Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Germany, and write a speech communicating that leader’s agenda in the context of current events.
“Speechwriting calls for a particular language,” Dinello said. “It has to be impressive, appealing and in short sentences”—a skill, she adds, particularly important for students of political management.
For the third assignment, on political institutions, students are given the practical exercise of writing a memo addressing a particular issue and making recommendations to a specific addressee, such as a foreign affairs minister, legislator or president. Students choose a topic reflecting their interests and reasons for joining the course.
“The important feature of our course is flexibility,” Dinello said. “We have students not only from our school and college, but the School of Business, the Milken Institute School of Public Health, the Elliott School and the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. We encourage people from other schools to join because it’s a very good kind of cross-fertilization of experiences, interests and commitments.”
In the fourth week, students write scenarios on a topic of their choice, describing how such issues as human rights, climate change, or defense and security are being addressed in a particular country. They develop best-case, worst-case and intermediate scenarios around the issues they choose.
As the students do their coursework, Dinello and Larsen, both of whom travel with the class, are finishing up arrangements for the trip. Dinello arranges meetings with officials and Larsen handles travel logistics.
In Brussels, Hannah Steiner is at left in a blue jacket, behind Natalia Dinello, Jacob Wood and Jennifer Lee. (Contributed photo)
Welcome! Bienvenido! Willkommen!
When the GW students, along with Dinello and Larsen, arrive at their destination, they meet with government officials and professionals in business, international relations and security, government relations, public affairs and communications. To the extent possible, Dinello arranges meetings that speak to the interests of students on each trip. In general, she said, people are happy to meet with GW students.
“It's amazing how receptive people are to Americans and to American students overall,” Dinello said. “I would say it’s easier to arrange meetings abroad than it is to arrange meetings in Washington. People are very, very receptive.”
Almost all countries today, she added, are experiencing some degree of political polarization. When foreigners look at the United States, they see polarization, too, and are eager to discuss it with the group from GW.
Students say their participation in the program is enjoyable and highly educational. Several of them have joined more than one residency.
Jennifer Lee, now in her final semester in the master’s program in legislative affairs, joined all three trips in 2024, traveling to the UK, Brussels and Mexico. Asked to name her favorite trip, she thought hard for a moment.
“It’s close, but I would have to say Mexico, just because there’s so much rich music and culture and dancing just not present elsewhere,” Lee said. “I've not done a lot of travel in my life and I'm a very anxious traveler, but the trip was just absolutely incredible.”
As a result of her three trips, Lee has developed an interest in foreign policy and international relations. She encourages all interested students to apply, specifically citing the high level of access to VIPs.
“If money and time were no objects, you could travel every day for a hundred years and never get into some of these rooms,” Lee said. “Every study abroad program is going to offer a certain level of cultural immersion and exposure to how different countries deal with different issues. But here we actually get to go into meeting rooms with, for example, members of parliament, members of the Mexican Senate and their Chamber of Deputies. These are meetings that an ordinary traveler could never get.”
Another student in her final semester of work toward a master’s degree in political management, Hannah Steiner, also went on three trips with the program. She plans to go on a fourth, to Germany, in March. Her favorite trip so far has been the one to the UK.
“It just really lined up with my career interests in security and defense policy and transatlantic studies,” Steiner said. “I’ve been interested in UK culture and politics my whole life, so it was truly amazing to see how their government is going, and to see those historical places where Winston Churchill walked was breathtaking.”
Jacob Wood, B.A. ’22, majored in international affairs and will also receive his master’s degree in political management in May. He went with a group to Brussels last summer.
“The whole trip was phenomenal,” Wood said. “We got to meet members of the European Parliament. We got to go to the European Commission headquarters and meet with some of their staff and hear firsthand about their experiences.”
The students have learned that people in other countries know more than most Americans do about the global stage. Wood said the trip to Brussels confirmed his professional aspirations.
“I’ve had an interest in the EU for a while,” Wood said. “In the long term, I really like the idea of getting to do international political work.”
