Author: William Hobbs | Major: Biology and Psychology | Semester: Summer 2025
Me at the Windmills at Zaandijk
My name is Will Hobbs. I am in Fulbright College as a Pre-Med Biology major with a Psychology minor, and during the summer session I went on a two month study abroad trip to the UK and the Netherlands. I did the Summer Comparative Public Health Systems I + II program with CIEE and I learned a lot about the different healthcare systems and how they differ from ours in the US, while getting to experience culture, knowledge, and history in real time in Europe. I was there for two months from May a week after my finals to mid June. I had always really wanted to study abroad somewhere and finally get the chance to travel and learn new perspectives in different cultures or nations, and with this program I finally got the chance to do just that! Plus, I already had some knowledge about the UK and West Europe through family connections and media that made the destination the perfect choice for me. I had a class every week where I got to meet my fellow students either also in Pre-Med or Public Health as I got to learn the comparisons between the history, facilities, highs, and lows of the UK’s NHS and Netherlands healthcare system to ours. We learned challenges that both face and we had to do mock debates, essays, or even on-sight visits on how they continue to fight these challenges, and how we would do so. This definitely gave me a more widened perspective on the type of healthcare challenges people around the world, and expanded my definition of what healthcare should seek to encapsulate. One moment that particularly stood out to me is when in London we got to meet some healthcare professionals such as doctors and surgeons who taught us about their daily lives, schooling to get to their profession, and their opinions on the UK and US healthcare systems. It was so impactful for me to get to speak to them, as I myself will hopefully one day be going into the same field. While I know a good amount about how things work in the US, seeing and hearing stories of an outside opinion and their experiences opened my eyes to the amount of difference in the same field around the world and gave me a more global perspective of health. I also think, and I think this is good advice for future students thinking of studying abroad, that you should also just explore. Enrich yourself in food, culture, language, landmarks, nature, and people from other places to learn new things and broaden your understanding of people and life from around the world. I got to also take some weekend trips to Ireland, Scotland, Belgium, and Luxembourg and I highly recommend getting away from just school at all times to also take a bit of time to just absorb everything around you and get out of your comfort zone, I promise you will learn some valuable lessons that will stick with you for life. So don’t stay indoors all day! Get out there and learn! I highly recommend this trip and this program for anyone seeking to enrich themselves in new cultures as well as learn the ins and outs of different healthcare systems, and I promise you you will want to come back