Sophomore Dylan Zanker grew up surrounded by travel, going on family trips across the world and living abroad. This passion has grown into an integral part of his college experience.
Zanker is set to embark on journey across the ocean to Spain in the fall where he will spend the following two years studying at one of Spain’s top business schools, ICADE.
Many students at Elon have some sort of study abroad experience by the time they graduate, but Zanker’s experience is unique in that the reason for his travel is to complete Elon’s Business Dual Degree Program.
In previous years this program has brought students to partnering universities in France, Germany and Italy, but Zanker will be the first student to study at Elon’s newest partner in Madrid, Spain.
“One of the reasons [the program] works at Elon is because we do have a mission for global education as well as fostering global citizens,” said Mark Kurt, associate professor of economics, who runs the program as well as serves as Zanker’s adviser. “[We’ve] been working on this partnership [with ICADE] for a few years.”
By the end of his two years in Spain, Zanker will have both an Undergraduates Bachelor’s Degree from Elon in Business Administration as well as a Bachelors of Science in International Management from ICADE. He will not receive either degree until he completes all four years of schooling.
His classes has been meant to prepare him for the program.
“It’s intensive, I’ve had to overload the past few semesters and do 20 credit hours, but it’s still pretty manageable,” Zanker said of his past two years of business classes at Elon in preparation for his move. “What the program tries to do is it tries to get you to understand business in all different senses, so studying finance, marketing, management and then just like you would do it here at Elon, you choose something you want to specialize in for the two years that I’ll be abroad.”
Students in the past who have partaken in the program at the other three partnering universities often struggle with tackling the language and sometimes even fail to complete their two years abroad.
“It’s not for every student,” Kurt said.
Usually students come to Elon already knowing about the program, and if it is something they’re interested in, they begin the pre-requisites as soon as possible.
“I tell students if you think you’re interested, you can get on the train at the first stop — it’s very hard to get on after that, but you can [also] get off at any time,” Kurt said.
All of the classes at ICADE will be taught solely in Spanish. Zanker was able to pick up a lot of Spanish throughout his gap year after high school in Latin America where he traveled and worked.
But in order to polish his skills he plans to meet with a tutor a few times a week over the summer.
The program is also recommended that students arrive a few months before the start of school to make sure they are in good shape in terms of learning the language.
As part of the program, Zanker has to complete two internships — one here in the states and one for six months while he is abroad. Last summer he completed his first requirement by interning at a tech incubator in California that helped start-ups grow.
Zanker is now in the process of finding an internship in Spain as well as searching for an apartment to share with other students next year.
Moving forward, Zanker has two objectives both socially and professionally to obtain during his time in Madrid.
“First of all it’s Europe, I think I’m going to have a blast traveling to different places and meeting international as well as Spanish students,” he said. “Professionally, there are not many people have this degree, so not only will I learn so many different skills from an international mindset and learn a new language, a new culture and new international businesses. I think [having these] two degrees — professionally — will set me up as someone that employers will really like.”
Other students have told Zanker that it is tricky being so far from home, but in the end it is well worth it and sets you up to be in a really good place.
Zanker is aware that being the pioneer student from Elon studying at ICADE may pose some challenges, but Kurt said they will cross those bridges as they come.
“We talked about it,” he said. “Some little things are going to come up and we are just going to work them out. We have good people both here and there that will work on these things.”