Growing global perspectives for first-year students

When Katie Kerwan arrived at UB last fall, she was eager to explore a new city and build a community for herself.

“I really wanted to dive into my first year head-first,” Kerwan says. “I was looking for any opportunity to broaden my knowledge as a student and become a better citizen.”

Her participation in the Ready, Set, Buffalo! community engagement program fueled her drive to seek out opportunities to engage and broaden her worldview. During the winter session, that drive took Kerwan to the United Kingdom as part of the UB First-Year Global Experience in the United Kingdom.

For 10 days in January, Kerwan and her classmates traveled around the U.K., developing their intercultural communication skills, enhancing their ability to live and lead in a global society and learning from faculty leaders about United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of interlinked objectives designed to address some of the major challenges faced today by people around the globe.

The group volunteered at a local soup kitchen; fundraised on the streets of London; toured Brixton, where they learned about its historical roots and lingering racial prejudice; and visited Oxford University, where they met with the head of environmental sustainability to learn about eco-conscious campus efforts and renewable energy.

The program engages first-year students from across UB — and their experience doesn’t end with the trip. Now that they’re back on campus, the students and faculty will continue to meet to share reflections with the UB community and participate in poster sessions and other presentations at the UB Global Summit event during Accepted Students Day.

For Kerwan, the experience gave her a deeper look at issues of social justice and sustainability, including SDGs.

“The program showed me that everyone faces their own unique troubles, but issues like food scarcity, racial prejudice, poverty and pollution have no border,” Kerwan says.

“We observed how close the U.K. is to achieving their sustainability goals, and it was incredibly inspiring to see the progress they’ve made over the past decade or two,” she adds. “It shows that change is possible and that small actions can lead to big impacts.”

As UB prepares students to lead in a global world, study abroad may be out of reach for many because of financial means, course requirements or other obstacles. First-year programs aim to address these challenges.

“We wanted to create an opportunity that increased access to study abroad for students and provided a transformational global experience right at the beginning of their time here,” says Adam Rubin, assistant vice provost and director of education abroad. “We also wanted the program to tie into UB’s focus on sustainability while remaining affordable and accessible to students from a broad range of academic perspectives.”

The program began three years ago as a study abroad initiative that allows students to receive three credits toward their Global Pathways requirement. For the past three years, students traveled to Costa Rica in January to develop skills necessary to succeed in a global society. The program grew last year with the addition of the U.K. option.

“About 80% of students enter college thinking that they want to study abroad, but only about 10% of students nationwide study abroad,” Rubin explains. “We wanted to create an opportunity for students that would help overcome those barriers and make it easier for them to study abroad during their first year at UB.”

The program has grown from 12 students in 2023 to 40 students in 2025. The opportunity is open to first-year students and new transfer students, and participants represent a very diverse range of students from the UB community. This year, there were 17 students in the Costa Rica program and 23 students in the U.K. program representing 17 different academic majors. And many were first-generation, Educational Opportunity Program or international students.

When Brianna Wray, a transfer sophomore nursing student, learned about the UB First-Year Global Experience in Costa Rica, she immediately knew she wanted to participate.

“Studying abroad is something that I’ve always wanted to do,” Wray says. “I wanted to be immersed in another culture and I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I really wanted to make sure that I experienced it.”

Nursing programs have strict course requirements, which can make it challenging for students to find study abroad opportunities.

“I can’t take my nursing classes abroad, which is why this was such a rare opportunity for me,” Wray says. “It was the perfect way to study something relevant to my major while experiencing a new place and culture.”

Wray’s favorite experience was visiting with members of the BriBri, an indigenous tribe and autochthonous people of the Talamanca region on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

“It was eye-opening to witness how they navigated their day-to-day lives, offering a completely different perspective on gender roles,” Wray says. “The structure was matriarchal, with women in charge, while men took on roles like caring for the children and agricultural work. Hearing the women’s points of view and understanding their lives was incredibly valuable, especially because we were fully immersed in their culture.”

The program also gave students the opportunity to live with Costa Rican host families, learn about sustainable agricultural and meet with leaders of a non-governmental organization that supports women who have recently immigrated to Costa Rica from other Latin American countries.

For Wray, her experience solidified her plans to become a travel nurse after graduation.

“My experience changed my perspective and the way I look at the world because I was able to see what life is like in another country,” Wray says. “It helped me to see what things could look like here in the U.S.”