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Daniel Lee knows what it feels like to arrive somewhere unfamiliar and find your footing. As an international graduate student from South Korea pursuing a Master’s degree in higher education, student affairs and international education policy, he came to the University of Maryland carrying what he describes as "a little bit of imposter syndrome."Lee’s experience navigating U.S. higher education, and learning how to see his international perspective as an asset helped shape global learning at UMD and who it is designed for.

Studying abroad in Germany gave this engineering student a firsthand look at how a city can honor its past while engineering its future. | Daniel Prins, UMD-Winter: Germany

“When I committed to the Indonesian study abroad program, I started learning Indonesian and I’m so glad I put in the effort to learn and use some of the language…I unlocked a unique connection to whoever I'm interacting with that goes beyond typical tourist behavior.“ | Jillian Mikutsky, UMD Winter: Indonesia

In October 2025, early-career researchers and doctoral students from U21 member institutions and a policy leader convened in Dublin for the biannual Universitas 21 Health Research Exchange (U21HREx) symposium. Chaired by Dr. Negin Fouladi of the University of Maryland (UMD), the U21HREx network brings together participants from UMD, the University of Birmingham and University College Dublin as a growing global community of practice.

On a summer morning in Seoul, eight students gathered around a whiteboard and filled it with ideas, from legal knowledge to insight on how migration looks in their home countries. Their challenge: develop a solution to support climate refugees. By the end of the week, their brainstorming evolved into a website tool that earned their team third place in the Climate Corps competition.

What can one phone call do? For University of Maryland Professor Kerry W. Tripp, it launched a partnership that has now connected hundreds of students, spanned two continents and reshaped how faculty think about international collaboration.