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A podcast about international social work. Made by SocNet98, an European network of 18 universities that graduates students in social work. In this podcast you can listen to a broad specter of topics that is all connected to social work in an international perspective.
[Automatic captions by Autotekst using OpenAI Whisper V3. May contain recognition errors.]
[Steinar Vikholt]
Welcome to The Social Pod, a podcast brought to you by SocNet98, a network of universities sharing the common interest for social work in an international perspective.
So welcome to this episode of The Social Pod.
In this episode we're going actually to have a follow-up on the last episode.
The last episode that we recorded was with four students of the Soglo course
And right now we have three people sitting here and we were all a part of that episode, but all of us wasn't speaking in the episode.
But me, myself, I was sitting listening to what the students were talking about and I had so many reflections about what they said.
And now we have the opportunity to actually talk a little bit about our reflections and reactions maybe to what the students are going through.
So when we're sitting here, my name is Steinar Vikholt.
I'm a project leader of the project Soglo.
I work at the University of Southeastern Norway and out of Porsgrunn in Norway.
And with me here around the table, we have two of my colleagues from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
Hi, my name is Phu Phan, and I am the chair of the Human Services Department at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
And it was me who moderated the podcast that Steiner referred to.
So I'm happy to respond, to have some reactions to what I heard this morning.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah, thank you.
And also, we have Hannah.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
Yes.
Hi, I'm Hannah Nguyen.
I am a professor at Cal State Dominguez Hills in the same department as Phu here.
I was there for part of the episode, so I heard a little bit here and there, but very intriguing ideas, right?
[Steinar Vikholt]
Absolutely.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
Let's join in on the conversation.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah, I was just thinking about, because two of these students, they are your students coming from Los Angeles, from Cal State Dominguez Hills, and they are a part of this project, the Social Work in the Global World project, where they travel to Norway and partake in this course that we teach here in Porslund.
And the two other students were students coming from other universities, one from South Dakota and one from Japan.
And this is the first time we had students coming from other universities and it was very nice also listening in on their experiences.
But Fu, what was your, out of their reflections and telling about what this meant to you, what is the biggest thing that you would say that made you aware of or impacted you?
[Prof. Phu Phan]
You know, there are several things, but I'll try to narrow it down.
I was listening to their experiences and I coming in,
I kind of had a script, but midway through, I kind of threw the script apart because of what came, the themes that came out.
And it was interesting to me that a couple themes that I thought about was, first was the thought of leaving home.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
going out in the world and being independent and feeling like, can I or can't I?
And it was very heartwarming for me to see that they have
been only away from home for about a month, but they've already built the confidence that they say that now they're independent and that they can do the things that they are here to do.
And that was a really good
look into how the experiences of international exchanges build your confidence at the same time, making you nervous, but build your confidence so that you can go out and do and know about yourself that you can do it.
The other thing that touched me a lot was that this notion of
I bring with me my family on the journey.
We heard that a couple of times from other students also.
We heard that from other students and that's a really good thing and maybe because of social media.
I've always kind of been leery a little bit about social media but
Their experiences of that have told me that there are positive things that can come out of social media if we use it right.
[Steinar Vikholt]
They do share their experience, not only on social media, but also just because we have the digital world we're living in.
They are contacting and bringing along their family along the way.
They're sharing pictures each day.
They're calling back home, having them with them in their new daily routine.
Maybe in the morning because of the time difference in the morning when they get up, they can call the family and they start their morning and say good night to the family.
And the family wonders what is up today?
What are we going to do today?
So the family, they bring the family along this journey.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
Yes.
And it was particularly
touching to me that the three students who talked about growing up poor and being the first generation students that because they are now here that it provided opportunities for their younger siblings to follow their footsteps.
And that's just a very beautiful thing that you can do for your siblings and for your family.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Absolutely.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
Any third theme there?
No, I think I'll let Hannah have her reactions or reflections on what she heard.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
So I only heard part of it, but I think to add to what Fu shared, something I heard while sitting there was this idea of the imposter syndrome.
I think that was brought up a number of times.
And I think if you were to just sit in that room alone for that moment, it probably wouldn't carry much of a meaning.
But in my own work as a faculty at Dominguez Hills,
It carried an immensely meaningful emotion for me because Fu and I teach a population that we would identify as underserved.
and who have very limited access.
And you heard it, I think, Michelle and Edna mentioned how they never really grew up with that sense of confidence, right?
Because of being from poor family or limited background or knowledge about just travel.
That's a privilege.
And many of our students, like Foo State, have not even left California.
And so when they talked about the imposter syndrome, I think they had a lot of self-doubt and they didn't feel like they were worthy of being here.
And I think it really struck me when I heard that, you know, like how can a human being feel like they didn't belong or they couldn't access something that I see in Norway as universal.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
Yeah.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
for the times i've been here like you guys prioritize that you have funding to help support your students education and then here i am hearing from the students that we work with and we serve i think it touched me quite a bit because they're here now you know and so i think relating to what foo said it really boosts their confidence but i think a sense of self-esteem and self-worth and that's something that's really hard to cultivate in an individual and i think this experience
has transformed that for our students.
And I think it's an added value that you just can't put a price tag on, right?
It has to take a certain experience for them to feel that way.
And so there's something about the experience and the Norwegian encounter that I think
helps our students feel valued and worthy.
And it really, I don't know, touched my heart and I wanted to kind of highlight that.
Because for a long time, our students who feel like they're not able to, not capable of, they won't seek out these opportunities.
They wouldn't go for more because they don't feel like they're worthy of more.
I heard that transformation.
[Steinar Vikholt]
I also hear the term first generation.
What's the term?
First generation students.
And we don't use that term a lot in Norway, but there's a lot of first generation students in my classroom.
It's probably maybe, I don't know the number, but if I should guess, maybe 60, 70, 80% of them is first-generation.
That's a high percent.
I think maybe 50, the low part.
But there's a lot of first-generation students also.
But we don't talk about it because in Norway it doesn't really matter that much if your parents have had a university grade before.
And going into social work that we teach also in Norway,
A lot of their parents do not have a higher degree.
But the huge difference is that in Norway, the education is free.
So it doesn't really matter if you're coming from a wealthy family or not a wealthy family.
As long as you have decent grades, you will get into higher education.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
What about you, Steinar?
What is your reflection on what you heard?
[Steinar Vikholt]
What I heard were... I was thinking a lot about this thing that they first talked a lot about what they learned themselves.
So of course this course teaches them a lot and a lot of experiences.
but what they started talking a little bit about but i know that they they truly do is that they bring a lot to the table they influence a lot of norwegian students so without knowing him knowing it they are quote unquote teachers for and bringing education to the norwegian students that i meet and they meet a lot of norwegian students
And just by being on campus, being in the social activities, that is not in class.
But even there, they are teaching and learning and educating the Norwegian population about where they're coming from, how it is to be an exchange student.
And so I have a huge emphasis on that when we make the classes, trying to mix them up.
But then when they move into the classroom, they are starting to explain how the American system is, for example.
So they start teaching the Norwegian students about their everyday life, and the Norwegian students learn a lot about that.
I also believe that they may be learning something about their own society because of the reactions they get from the Norwegians.
Norwegian students are like, wow, why is it like that?
That's kind of strange.
Why do you do that?
And we heard a little bit about that in the episode also.
So they truly, truly, they come to Norway and they help educate Norwegian students without knowing it, I think.
But that is one of the huge things that I think has a huge impact on all the students that they meet.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
Is that what you mentioned the other day, internationalization?
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah, absolutely.
That's why it's so extremely important for this course and I hope more courses, international exchange courses, don't just bring exchange students to Norway to sit in their own little bubble learning something in Norway.
They need to be together with Norwegian students.
and mix and be like we always say in Norway, come to Norway, become Norwegian.
You need to mix with the population.
But as they expressed very clearly, it's kind of hard to get to know Norwegians.
But getting to know Norwegians, we can facilitate that a lot as faculty when we make the classes.
We can force the students into groups and as long as they have something to do, some activity to do, that can be a pretty easy work assignment for example, then they start talking, then they start interacting and then they get to know each other and then it helps with the Norwegian shyness as they were talking about.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
As I'm hearing you, it reminded me of something they mentioned outside of the episode, but bringing something with them to the Norwegian students.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
So Michelle talked about how she has cooked tacos and enchiladas.
Yeah.
And their roommate, Norwegian, has tried it.
And I think that's also really special, right?
Because I think Norwegians have your own version of the tacos.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah, we have tacos, yeah.
What we define as tacos is the Norwegian taco.
Yeah, yeah, but it's quite different.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
And there's what, Michelle and... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
coming from her background knows to be tacos.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Yeah, proper tacos.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
And I thought that was cool that she feels, you know, okay to do that.
Like, let me make my own food with what I have here and introduce you to what that flavor should taste like.
And I think that's part of the exposure and experience.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Absolutely.
And the other thing thinking about is why it's so important and now I've almost become a little like political in the Norwegian education system.
It's so extremely important that the exchange programs that we have that they are more open and more free that we don't take a lot of money for it.
Right now if you take an exchange student in Norway and take a master's degree for example you have to pay now.
That happened last year, a change in the politics around it.
Before that, it was completely free.
So now we're in a situation where it's only the rich and wealthy exchange students that can come to Norway and learn whatever they need in Norway and take that back home.
But as of right now, still small courses like this, it can still be free.
It's still allowed to be free.
But it's so important that we keep this option open to have the students that you're talking about coming to Norway.
So it's not something only for the rich and wealthy people.
[Prof. Hannah Nguyen]
I agree.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
I am curious a little bit, Steiner.
One of the questions I asked the students was how it was for them to be an international student here in Norway, and being Norwegian yourself, as you hear what they're saying, what was your reaction or reflection?
[Steinar Vikholt]
And I was very glad because they said a lot of positive things.
And the reason for me saying that I'm glad to hear that they're having such a positive experience about it is because I think the university has done a lot of good things throughout the last five, six, seven years with internationalization.
Me, myself, now I'm teaching at the University of Southeastern Norway, but I was also a student here for five years.
And I was also a student politician.
And there we saw that you did have a lot of exchange students, but they were not mixing with all the other students.
So you had the same campus, you had the foreign students and you had all the Norwegian students.
So they have done a lot of good things now at the university to try to mix this.
One thing is what the international department does, but I think it's truly working.
What we have been successful in this project is to mix the classes.
Mixing the classes means that Norwegian students need to get out of their comfort zone.
They need to be able to speak English in a classroom.
And you two had a wonderful lecture yesterday where you actually were teaching about 160 students.
98% of them were Norwegians.
And we had these four exchange students and you were able to get them out of their comfort zone.
And they started engaging and asking questions and speaking English.
And it was so great.
That means that all these 160 Norwegian students, they now know also the exchange students.
They will start interacting with them whenever they see them in the hallways.
And yeah, you're kind of broken that ice.
Yeah.
[Prof. Phu Phan]
That was nice that I saw that they were the first, it was the first time that they were together in such a big group like that.
And both the Norwegian students and the international exchange students were, they're very, very interactive in the classroom and it was a really good thing to see that
Many students, Norwegian students, at first they were a little bit hesitant, but once they started talking and sharing ideas, they felt a lot more comfortable.
During the breaks that you saw, they were really talking to each other really well.
That was a nice thing.
[Steinar Vikholt]
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for sitting here talking about this.
We're not finished.
We're going to talk about more stuff.
We're going to make probably more podcast episodes.
So again, thank you for all the listeners to this episode.
Again, if you haven't heard the episode that we're referencing, please go back and listen to that one.
And yeah, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.