Last year was a busy one for Common Purpose Student Experiences, delivering 29 programmes, across 7 continents for 1,816 students. From Auckland to Abuja, Mumbai to Montreal and Nairobi to New York students tackled globally relevant challenges, explored leadership and developed Cultural Intelligence.

One month in and 2018 promises to be even more exciting, particularly as our work in North America continues to grow. We started the year at Harvard College with one of our Weir Group sponsored programmes, working with an amazingly diverse group of students from across six Boston universities; Harvard University, MIT, Boston University, Tufts University, Boston College and Babson College, exploring the challenge ‘How can smart cities ensure they are inclusive?’ Students visited a range of organizations including Microsoft, City Hall, Credly, Boston PD and Generation Citizen, gaining diverse perspectives on the challenge and insights to different leaders and organizations.

“A fantastic 4 days, you wouldn’t believe how much you can learn and how many great people you can meet on this programme!”
Student, Harvard College, Boston GLE 2018

We also ran a GLE Abroad bringing students from Monmouth University and Regents University together in London. This gave them a fantastic opportunity not only to immerse themselves in London but also to learn from each other and understand different cultures.

We are seeing huge interest from Universities around the world in bringing their students to North America for our short-term immersive experiential programmes. Therefore, this year we will be expanding our range of North American University Partners. This offers a fantastic opportunity for local students to mix with students from abroad and gives them a global experience and global network without having to leave their own city!

With programmes coming up in New York City, Albany, Chicago, Montreal and Houston, we are looking forward to working with some of our University partners such as University of Chicago and SUNY, and seeing many more students in the US and Canada joining the Common Purpose Alumni global network of 70,000 students and senior leaders.