Denmark: Lauryn Thomas
Program: UW Cancer Care Across Cultures in Denmark, Winter Intersession
Major: Neurobiology and Gender & Women’s Studies
How will your experience benefit you in the future? How might it affect your future career or studies?
This experience helped me explore potential career paths that I did not know about before, such as radiation oncologist, medical oncologist, clinical trial manager, and pathologist. It exposed me to these potential fields and helped me understand where I could fit into oncology. It also furthered my interest in health policy as we got to examine the differences between the American fragmented healthcare system and the universal coverage in Denmark. Similarly, I was able to explore global and public health more closely and understand how systems affect access, disparities, and understanding of care.
What challenges or barriers did you face as you prepared to go abroad and/or during your time abroad? How did you work through them?
As this program was newly developed and running for the first time, the schedule was not set in stone. As an extremely type A person, it was challenging to adapt to different changes that were made and not have all the information of where we’re meeting or when, etc. I realized that this experience was not only defined by the academic portion, so it was okay when things didn’t go exactly as scheduled as it gave us more time and opportunities to explore Copenhagen and other places when we went on field trips.
Danish people enjoy a slowed down pace and better work-life balance. I will embody this by trying to slow down my fast-paced lifestyle and just enjoy being in the moment more often.
How were your program academics similar or different from taking classes at UW-Madison?
This program invited many distinguished professionals to speak on their area of expertise, functioning more closely to a seminar than a traditional lecture-style class. There were also many field trips, making the experience highly interactive. Both of these aspects made it feel different from UW, but we were encouraged to ask questions and reach out in the future, which is similar to UW.