There’s a quiet fear that sits just below numerous conversations about international education and first‑year trainees. Is it excessive prematurely? Are we asking students who are still determining how to do laundry, handle due dates, and discover their individuals to also cross borders and cultures? And, more pushing still: does any of this really assist students succeed long term?
These concerns followed me at the Annual Conference on the First Year Experience in Seattle as I discovered myself in rooms not usually filled with education abroad professionals. Surrounded by admissions leaders, professors, consultants, and student affairs professionals, I was very much in the minority as a worldwide education practitioner. However that turned out to be a present. It permitted me to listen carefully to how the first year is being reimagined– and what that might mean for discovering that occurs beyond campus borders.
Something was clear: the very first year is no longer being thought of as a single program or checklist of initiatives. Rather, it’s increasingly described as an community. Not a constellation of loosely associated efforts, but a living, breathing system where academic, social, and individual elements are deeply interconnected. Change one part, and whatever else moves too.
This framing matters. When we speak about communities, we stop asking who “owns” the first year and start asking how different gamers collaborate. In my own work supporting United States first‑year students at CEA CAPA Education Abroad, I see how powerful this frame of mind can be. First‑year learning, whether in your home or abroad, works finest when boundaries blur a little, when professors, consultants, trainee support teams, and global personnel are developing together rather than in parallel.
First‑year learning, whether in your home or abroad, works finest when limits blur a little, when professors, advisors, trainee support groups, and international staff are creating together instead of in parallel
Another style emerged again and once again in Seattle: belonging. Not as a nice‑to‑have, but as the foundation everything else rests on. We can design the most thoughtful curricula, layer in career exploration, and invest greatly in peer mentoring. But if students don’t feel linked– to each other, to their institution, to a sense of purpose– extremely little of it sticks.
The first year, perhaps more than any other, sets the psychological tone for a trainee’s entire degree. It’s when they begin to ask: Do I fit here? Can I be successful? Is this location assisting me become who I want to be? Belonging responses those concerns before grades ever can.
Cultivating belonging starts early. It indicates producing environments where various students can see a future variation of themselves growing. It implies intentionally building scholastic skills so development feels cumulative rather than overwhelming. It suggests assisting students link classroom learning to bigger goals: professions, communities, a changing world. And, perhaps most notably, it means nurturing curiosity, flexibility, and important thinking: the human capacities that matter a lot more as automation and AI speed up around us.
A couple of weeks back in Nashville, at The Online Forum on Education Abroad’s annual conference, these ideas came full circle. In a conference discussion I co-led with colleagues from California Polytechnic State University and Colorado School of Mines, I had the opportunity to highlight the developments of these two partners in the FYE abroad space. Utilizing their programs as case research studies, we evidenced how student-centric missions can be intentionally protected as FYE Abroad programs address larger institutional priorities– such as recruitment and retention– and how this requires a data-informed state of mind to be persuasive.
As FYE Abroad programs grow, intentionality ends up being the differentiator. Clear language, collective style, and data‑informed storytelling help ensure that the focus remains where it belongs: on what students actually require in their first year.
If the goal of the first year is to help trainees feel connected, capable, and confident, then every part of the ecosystem matters. Get belonging right early, and whatever else has something strong to base on.
About the author: Katie Cohen is the senior director of strategic global programs at CEA CAPA Education Abroad, where she leverages her comprehensive functional experience in research study abroad to advance the organisation’s commitment to excellence and development in global education. Want to learn more about establishing an FYE Abroad program with CEA CAPA? Visit our FYE Abroad website
< img src ="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E"/ > < img src="https://thepienews.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Boundless-Learning-600x500-1.jpg"/ >