IEW 2024 featured an impressive array of events that celebrated international education and exchange.

By Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications

UCLA International Institute, December 12, 2024 — The International Institute led UCLA’s annual commemoration of International Education Week (IEW) 2024 last month, November 18–22, with the support of 21 campus cosponsors. The week featured 46 events organized by 38 campus units, including schools, centers and student associations across the campus.

The array of events celebrating international education and exchange this year was impressive. Adventurous Bruins had many opportunities to experience the cultures of countries worldwide, beginning with a pre-IEW online interview of (Russian-language) Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov on November 13.

Every evening of the week offered an engaging cultural experience or performance, including film screenings; a traditional Japanese tea ceremony (graciously organized and explained by the student association, UTeaLA); student cultural performances and activities at Bruins Around the World; a wonderful free klezmer music concert by Almost Kosher, hosted by the UCLA Herb Albert School of Music with an appearance by the UCLA Klezmer Music Ensemble; and a celebration of the Thai Loy Krathong Festival cosponsored by the music school and several other campus units.

Four international films were screened over the course of the week: documentaries on the Ukraine War and the situation of Uyghurs in China, respectively, plus two science fiction films: a short from Kenya and a feature-length film from Canada/New Zealand — part of the pstART-supported UCLA Film & Television Archive series, Science Fiction Against the Margins.

The UCLA Fowler Museum — which explores global arts and cultures with an emphasis on Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Indigenous Americas — hosted a discussion by the curators of the ongoing “Sangre de Nopal/ Blood of the Nopal” exhibition, as well as an information session on student research and resources at the museum.

In addition, the UCLA Martial Arts Program generously opened up its entire schedule of classes to students wishing to try a free class during the week, with martial arts from countries throughout the world on offer. The program also shared a link to over 50 instructional videos in different martial arts, including a series of “Wonder Women” videos of women martial artists and teachers, on the IEW website.

It was a genuine pleasure for the International Institute to welcome the participation of several campus units in IEW for the first time. The department of chemistry and biochemistry, for example, organized a session about the contributions of international students and scholars to the physical sciences at UCLA, and both the UCLA Space Institute and the department of European languages and transcultural studies contributed wonderful videos to the IEW website, which showcases global resources and activities of units across campus. The Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars, a regular IEW participant, also contributed an engaging video of international students narrating what they liked about being students at UCLA.

The Center for Global Management kicked off the week early with an online forum, “The Business and Legal Challenges of Global Platforms,” cosponsored by the UCLA Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy of the UCLA School of Law, on November 13.

The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA hosted two events: a live webinar with Dr. Chris Buck speaking from Maputo, Mozambique on the challenges clinical research there and an in-person campus event on the emergence of mpox in the post-smallpox era with Dr. Placide Mbala-Kinegbeni of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

UCLA Extension returned to participate in IEW this year with three great events: an international student beach cleanup organized with Heal the Bay, a “Fika” coffee hour that brought together international and U.S. Bruins for casual conversation and an International Bruin Cup soccer match.

Among the many traditional international educational events organized for the week were several information sessions on the availability of funding for study and research abroad. These included presentations on U.S. government-supported Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships for summer 2025 and the 2025–26 academic year, a conversation with past recipients of these fellowships and, for the first time, a presentation by three different German educational organizations on study abroad and research funding for students and faculty.

A final educational event outlined details of competitive Boren Scholarships, which provide up to the $25,000 to undergraduate U.S. students to study a foreign language.

IEW this year also offered an unusual number of events that focused on international careers. The UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs kicked things off with a session on global careers in the U.S. government. The Career Center, the Study Abroad/IEO Office and the Dashew Center then went above and beyond by each organizing several targeted career and cultural events.

These events focused on, respectively, marketing the study abroad experience to employers, opportunities with the U.S. Peace Corps, essentials of the U.S. job market for international students, global summer internships and study abroad programs for the Spanish language, rounded out by a luncheon for and exhibit of visual art created by international Bruins.

Last but not least, the week offered many fascinating talks on international issues, including how education has changed in China over the past 20 years (by writer-journalist Peter Hessler), the history of reproductive surgery in Mexico, order and disorder in the Ottoman empire, Persian literature, women’s political imagination in the Kurdish movement and Zionism as the new Judaism.

The International Institute thanks its cosponsors, all of the UCLA units who organized events and all the students, faculty and staff who participated in International Education Week 2024. Until next year!

To read more about individual IEW events, consult the calendar or online listings.