Studying abroad in college can provide many benefits for students in both their academic and personal lives. An experience abroad may change a student's life trajectory altogether. In some cases, they may even decide to make the country they visited their permanent home!
In honor of International Education Week, meet four SUNY Oneonta recent alumni whose lives were forever changed by their study abroad experiences.
During his junior year at SUNY Oneonta, Jeff Sullivan chose to study abroad for an academic year at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Japan. His goal was to find a city where he could immerse himself in the Japanese culture and focus on improving his language skills.
After his year abroad, Jeff returned to SUNY Oneonta, but his year abroad, a defining moment, stuck with him and changed the course of his professional and personal life. After graduating with a degree in business economics in 2013, Jeff returned to Fukuoka, moving there to teach English as a second language for Japanese citizens and business professionals. He is pursuing a career as a translator.
“I met all of these international people and I really expanded my horizons. I had a little taste and I wanted more,” Jeff said.
As an educator, Jeff understands the challenges his students face in learning a new language, in part because he faced the same challenges when he was learning Japanese as a student.
“Living with people from many different countries in the I-House, the international house at Seinan Gakuin, was really powerful, because you’re all going through the same things, but there will be different reactions," he said. "I lived and interacted with Japanese people, and French, and British, and Russian, and people from all these different places. Being able to see how people from all over the world react to the same cultural differences was really powerful for me."
Carlos Felipe Salomon Goraieb came to SUNY Oneonta as an international student from Mexico, studying music industry and business economics. While at Oneonta, he worked as a Resident Advisor in Tobey Hall and took advantage of domestic faculty-led trips, including one to The NAMM Show in California and another to SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, Texas that led to an internship and job in Los Angeles after he graduated.
After working in LA for The CW Network and then representing artists for a talent agency company, Carlos returned to Mexico, where he started not one but two businesses of his own. The first is Creative Marketing Agency, Marketing ISD, where most of his clients are in the hospitality and tourism industries and he uses much of what he learned about how record labels handle marketing while at SUNY Oneonta. His second business is a small magazine called El Ligre Curioso, the goal of which is to share and inspire creative and interesting artistic projects happening in Mexico.
"As an international student in Oneonta, everything was new, including learning how to say hello without a kiss," Carlos recalled. "The best part was the many opportunities. I took advantage of the funding available to go to conferences etc. and was so grateful for that. I gained global communication skills that serve me to this day, having clients from all over the world. I gained confidence in myself to creatively solve problems, which is what I based my businesses on. And I met a lot of great friends, now located all over the world, who I'm still super close with."
Maaya Sato came to the United States as an international student from Japan, majoring in international development studies. After researching many different schools, she was attracted to SUNY Oneonta because its Office of Global Education provided "a lot more assistance and support for international students compared to other schools," she said.
After graduating, she stayed in the United States and is now living in New York City, working for a Japanese external trade organization.
While at Oneonta, Maaya was an office assistant for the Office of Global Education and a peer mentor for other international students, helping them assimilate and sharing about cultural differences and backgrounds.
She also took advantage of faculty-led trips abroad. Her freshman year, she and her classmates spent two weeks in Bolivia, immersiving themselves in the culture and completing service-learning projects in elementary schools, high schools and alongside nonprofit Save the Children.
"That was a life-changing opportunity for me," Maaya said. "We learned a lot about politics and culture, and we used what we learned in class in the field. ... I really appreciate those many opportunities."
As a senior, Maaya traveled to Zimbabwe to learn about the political development and economy of the country and the difficulties of non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, operating under unstable socio-economic conditions.
As a student majoring in international development studies and Spanish at SUNY Oneonta, Kayla Belush jumped at any opportunity to go abroad and practice her speaking skills. She represented the college as a Study Abroad Ambassador in Colombia, performed community service and volunteer work in Bolivia, and taught a soccer workshop in Canada, all while maintaining a stellar GPA and playing on the women's soccer team. On campus, she worked as an RA, tutored classmates, was active in several clubs and honor societies, and was a SUNY Chancellor's Award recipient.
Belush says she was "blown away by the opportunities for international travel through SUNY Oneonta." She was most impacted by a three-week service learning faculty-led trip to Bolivia in collaboration with Save the Children International.
"It provided me with hands-on application of the principles I had been learning about non-profit work for 3 years as a college student in areas such as fundraising, project planning and execution, and public speaking opportunities in a professional atmosphere in both Spanish and English," she said. "This opportunity also raised my awareness of the type of life that I wanted to lead career-wise and opened my eyes to greater themes of social justice that went on to define the remainder of my studies."
After graduating, Kayla received her master's in Spain in International Cooperation for Development "as a direct result of my experience with Save the Children in Bolivia," she said. She stayed in Spain and made it her home, and she now owns her own business, Enhanced English for Entrepreneurship, providing language coaching. She has prioritized a nonprofit structure within her business to "give back to the communities that impacted me so greatly during my time abroad."
© 2026 SUNY Oneonta
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