{"id":919,"date":"2026-04-20T12:40:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/?p=919"},"modified":"2026-04-20T12:40:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T12:40:49","slug":"a-global-learning-experience-gregor-von-rohrs-exchange-semester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/2026\/04\/20\/a-global-learning-experience-gregor-von-rohrs-exchange-semester\/","title":{"rendered":"A Global Learning Experience: Gregor von Rohr\u2019s Exchange Semester"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gregor von Rohr didn\u2019t arrive at the Lacy School of Business looking for a pause in his academic journey. He came looking for a place where he could expand it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally from Switzerland, Gregor studies political science with a strong business focus, moving between disciplines that rarely stay in separate lanes. His academic path has already taken him across institutions and borders, including the University of Zurich and an exchange semester at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he immersed himself in international relations and national security studies. Each experience added another layer to how he understands politics, economics, and the systems that connect them globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was at LSB where those layers began to actively intersect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In International Business Environment, taught by Dr. Juan Manual Gil<\/a>, Gregor stepped into a learning environment designed around real-world global collaboration. The course integrates X-Culture<\/a>, an international experiential learning project that brings together thousands of students from more than 100 countries to work in virtual teams and develop internationalization strategies for real companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Gregor, this wasn\u2019t just another group assignment \u2013 it became the defining academic experience of his exchange semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through X-Culture, he worked with peers across continents on a real business challenge: developing expansion strategies for a honey company in Africa. The experience pushed far beyond traditional case studies. It required navigating time zones, communication styles, and deeply rooted cultural differences in how teams build trust and make decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Switzerland, if you\u2019re five minutes early, you\u2019re on time,\u201d he reflects. \u201cBut in a global team, you quickly realize those assumptions don\u2019t always translate. Everything changes; how you communicate, how you define deadlines, even how you build relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What stood out most to Gregor was how directly the experience reflected what he was learning in Dr. Gil\u2019s classroom at Lacy. Concepts like internationalization, cross-cultural management, and global strategy were no longer theoretical frameworks \u2013 they were immediate, lived realities unfolding inside his team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His performance and engagement in both the course and X-Culture led to a significant recognition: selection for the 2026 X-Culture Global Business Week Conference in Trieste, Italy<\/a>. Out of more than 500 applicants, only 150 students were chosen globally. For Gregor, the selection represents not just individual achievement, but a continuation of the applied, global learning he first encountered at the Lacy School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Gregor has found that Butler offers something beyond academic rigor: a sense of community that shapes how learning feels. Compared to competitive environments he has experienced elsewhere, he describes Lacy as more collaborative \u2013 where students are encouraged not just to compete, but to engage, support, and build together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople care about each other here,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just competition; it\u2019s community. That changes how you learn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That balance has influenced how he thinks about his future. Exposure to global systems, inequality, and economic structures \u2013 both in and outside the classroom \u2013 has led him to explore paths in international diplomacy or consulting, where analytical thinking and human understanding must work together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of academics, Gregor has also extended his voice through writing as an opinion contributor for The Butler Collegian<\/a>. Writing, for him, serves as another way of processing what he is learning: connecting academic theory to lived experience and global observation. It is less about reporting and more about synthesizing: understanding how ideas show up in the real world, and why they matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe real skill,\u201d he says, \u201cis connecting what you learn to what you see happening in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For students considering LSB, especially those coming from international backgrounds, Gregor\u2019s experience reflects what is possible when academic structure and global opportunity intersect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked what he would say to another student considering an exchange at LSB, his answer is immediate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust do it. Once you\u2019re here, you realize how much is possible. You just have to step into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gregor von Rohr didn\u2019t arrive at the Lacy School of Business looking for a pause in his academic journey. He came looking for a place where he could expand it.<\/p>\n

Originally from Switzerland, Gregor studies political science with a strong business focus, moving between disciplines that rarely stay in separate lanes. His academic path has already taken him across institutions and borders, including the University of Zurich and an exchange semester at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he immersed himself in international relations and national security studies. Each experience added another layer to how he understands politics, economics, and the systems that connect them globally.<\/p>\n

But it was at LSB where those layers began to actively intersect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2812,"featured_media":921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"class_list":["post-919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":926,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.butler.edu\/lacybusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}