My Experience as a Fulbright Scholar at University College Copenhagen

Kristyn VanderWaal Mills, Ph.D. was a guest scholar at University College Copenhagen from January through May 2026. These are her personal reflections on her time in Denmark and the similarities and differences between Danish and American university/community colleges.

For my Fulbright Sabbatical Project, I worked at a University College in Denmark, Københavns Professionshøjskole (KP), which is similar to a community and technical college in the United States. It felt familiar, but also fascinatingly different.

The mission is much the same: training students for specific professions such as nurses. The program I worked with trains laboratory technicians.

But everyday academic life is not quite the same. I remember being immediately surprised that students do not choose specific courses like “college algebra” and “chemistry.” Instead, all subjects are merged into the program courses.

It quickly became clear that this Fulbright experience would be as much about understanding how different systems support shared educational goals as about the specific work I came to do.

When I applied for a Fulbright Award in September 2024, it felt like a long shot. Fulbright awards are extremely competitive, and I was not sure a community college professor like me would have the credentials needed. But, this specific opportunity was an excellent fit due to its focus on community colleges and University Colleges, rather than research universities.

My academic training is in genetics and cell biology research, but my professional focus is on teaching, scientific career skill development, and studying pedagogy in community colleges. Working within the Danish University College system offered an opportunity to learn how similar programs are shaped by different cultural structures and bring those lessons back to Minnesota.

Finding a host institution required initiative. I cold-emailed university colleges across Denmark, describing my work in community college science education. Through that process, I connected with faculty and administrators at KP. Conversations quickly shifted from “Could this work?” to “What could we build together?” The alignment was obvious. KP’s 2.5-year Laboratory Technician program closely parallels my home institution’s two-year Science and Engineering Technology program.

When I learned in April 2025 that I had received the award, I was deeply honored. I am the first faculty member from Saint Paul College (SPC) to receive a Fulbright, and I later learned this is also the first Danish Fulbright award focused on University Colleges. Fulbright scholars are more common at research universities, where international faculty and visiting academics are already embedded in institutional culture.

University Colleges focus primarily on teaching and professional preparation, not research or grant activity. At KP, international visiting professors are far less typical, and that difference matters. This fellowship was not just about an individual experience abroad, but about expanding international exchange at institutions that educate a large and often under-recognized segment of the higher education population.

Both KP and SPC focus on workforce preparation and serve diverse student populations. The differences lie in how those shared goals are structured, funded, and experienced. In Denmark, professional degrees are taken very literally. To work in a science laboratory, for example, individuals generally must complete a Laboratory Technician professional degree rather than a general bachelor’s degree in biology or chemistry. Training is targeted, practice-oriented, and designed to fully prepare students for specific roles.

Funding reinforces this approach. Higher education at University Colleges is publicly funded, and most students do not pay tuition. Even adults retraining for new careers are often state-supported. This changes student decision-making. Education feels less like a financial gamble and more like a public resource. While students still balance work and family, the absence of tuition debt removes a major source of pressure familiar in U.S. community colleges.

Curriculum design reflects this structure. University College programs do not include general education or prerequisite courses. Instead, theory and general skills are embedded directly into program courses and taught as needed. Students learn what they need, when they need it, in direct connection to their future profession. While this limits breadth, it creates coherence between coursework and occupations.

At the same time, much feels familiar. Danish University Colleges serve students of varied ages and backgrounds. Many work and have families. Procrastination and deadline negotiations are universal. Programs are governed by defined learning goals that require careful assessment and documentation.

Completion rates at KP, around fifty percent, are strong compared to my home institution, though these outcomes reflect different structural contexts. Overall, the University College structure felt both familiar and refreshingly different. Seeing a system where professional preparation is fully supported has given me a new lens on the strengths and constraints of the U.S. system.

The mission of a Danish University College feels familiar; however, the workplace culture reveals some of the most meaningful differences for me. One of the first noticeable differences was the collegial nature of work. Lunch happens together in the department kaffestue, on real plates with real silverware. No one eats alone at their desk. The staff space is bright and welcoming, with windows, plants, art, and an espresso machine.

One morning, I went into the kaffestue and discovered colleagues sharing bread and cheese. They invited me to the table to join in Brød Onsdag (Bread Wednesday), when staff rotate bringing fresh bakery bread, cheese, and butter to share.

It is a small ritual, but it signals how highly collegial time is valued.

Family life clearly takes precedence. Short workdays for family needs are normal, and many colleagues leave by mid-afternoon. Notably, this comes without guilt.

Work is important, but it is not expected to crowd out everything else. Plus, work is supposed to be fun! We had a board game afternoon one day, and birthday celebrations come with cake (pastries) and conversation.

Faculty offices are shared, typically with five to eight desks in one room, much like at my home institution. Between offices are enclosed meeting rooms, affectionately called “glass cages”, used for quiet work or meetings. Students study throughout the building, but one notable difference is that each program has its own student lounge located directly down the hall from faculty offices, complete with tables and a refrigerator. It is understated, but clearly intentional.

Being a rarity shifts the nature of exchange. There is perhaps more professional curiosity about my college, as many have not experienced a U.S. community college. There is also perhaps more Danish spoken at meetings as compared to the more international companies and universities. I am glad that I took a 3-month Danish course before I came!

There seems an openness to including me and my family in social gatherings, which might be specific to my department, but was very appreciated. Underlying this collegial culture is a high level of trust—among colleagues, between faculty and administration, and between institutions and the systems that support them. Meetings start on time, expectations are generally clear, and people are trusted to do what they say they will do.

My Fulbright work at KP centered on projects aligned with shared priorities for KP and SPC: career skill development, science identity, and workforce relevance. One major initiative was LabBridge, a virtual exchange connecting laboratory technician students at KP with students in the Science and Engineering Technology program at SPC.

Through regular Zoom meetings, students practiced professional scientific communication in English, discussed laboratory techniques, and explored how similar roles are trained in different national contexts. Students were engaged throughout and volunteered to create an online group to continue the connections after the exchange.

A second focus involved examining how technological literacy is taught and assessed in laboratory technician education. KP has developed a Technological Profile outlining core competencies. Using surveys and industry focus groups in Denmark and the United States, my project examined how these competencies are emphasized.

Early findings revealed more similarity than difference across countries, with emphasis on hands-on skills and communication. These findings prompted valuable discussion about why some competencies get deprioritized and how we prepare students to be adaptable in fast-changing technical fields.

Across both projects, colleagues at KP engaged deeply, challenged assumptions, and invited reciprocal critique. Their culturally grounded directness in feedback reduced ambiguity and allowed conversations to move quickly to what mattered. This work reinforced for me that meaningful international exchange thrives not through completion of a research project, but through creating space to examine familiar practices and collaborate.

Living and working in Denmark highlighted that adaptation is about recognizing what now feels normal, what still feels challenging, and what has shifted enough to endure. I return to Minnesota with a clearer sense of how this experience will shape my work, particularly in areas of professional identity and collaboration.

The partnerships developed at KP will continue to inform my teaching and program development, and I hope to grow them into sustained institutional exchange. This experience reinforced my belief in the transformative value of international exchange at teaching-focused institutions. University Colleges and community colleges educate a large portion of the workforce, yet they remain underrepresented in global academic conversations. Bringing international perspectives into these spaces strengthens education.