By Chip Wiggins
When you hear the term “study abroad,” likely your mind conjures images of students gallivanting in foreign cities, enjoying the local culture, maybe backpacking or taking trains to and from different countries. However, as dean and co-provost of Bentley University, when it comes to travel, I have a different view of what it should be, particularly at the graduate level.
Four years ago, when Bentley faculty decided to launch an 11-month, themed MBA program, we wanted to disrupt the traditional MBA mold. In addition to launching a curriculum that was co-developed and co-taught by business and arts and sciences faculty, we embedded three mandatory trips into the curriculum as a requirement to complete the degree.
We call these trips “field-based collaborations.” Students learn advanced business concepts in four themed modules (leadership, environments, value, and innovation) in the dedicated MBA studio and, in between each module, the cohort travels together on two international trips and one domestic.
Though many master’s programs allow for travel within their programs, few require three trips or purposefully integrate it into the curriculum. But they should.
Learning to Succeed — and to Fail
By pushing students to incorporate this type of field-based learning into their graduate learning experience, we as educators have the opportunity to illuminate students' skills and limitations, both of which are core elements of being a competent leader.
By offering a framework for students to safely engage and explore international organizations, meet with global leaders, and test out their ideas in a foreign place where quite frankly they are challenged and often misfire, we are actually setting them up to succeed later. Students who know how to productively grapple with complex global issues and learn from their failures, as well as their successes, will become better leaders in the long run.
At Bentley, these are obviously not your average study abroad trips as they are condensed for time and not at all about “sightseeing.” Instead, complicated business issues — generally ones for which an actionable solution are not immediately obvious — are incorporated into the classroom curriculum, with the purpose being to connect topics, build on previous themes and set up coverage of future themes.
Putting Concepts into Practice
The trips focus on putting classroom concepts into practice in a different place that requires different often cross-cultural thinking and problem-solving approaches. By way of example, consider studying in Athens, Greece, with the opportunity to engage 
consumer-focused organizations about how they are continuing to serve their constituents in the post-financial crisis on the eve of the left-wing party coming into power.
When sandwiched between courses that look at how firms generate and sustain value and the environments in which they operate, this field experience brings those issues to life in a very real way. We find this to be the most effective way to show students how to broaden their point of view. Success is measured not only in the trips themselves but in the thoughtful reflection and classroom discussion that take place upon our return.
Great leaders have a great sense of self and sense of community, both of which are enhanced when forced to travel with a group of peers and faculty and to engage with counterparts in other locales. This intensive time spent together, both as colleagues and travel companions, is almost always transformative. And what better time to transform, grow, and reflect than while in business school preparing to be a future change agent.
Chip Wiggins is dean of the McCallum School of Business and interim co-provost of Bentley University.