Conversation with Career Strategist Expat Karla Fraser

In this episode, Career Strategist Karla Fraser tells us how to curate your own professional development as a way towards career advancement, why knowing how to do 25% is good enough to apply for a position; and talks about funding your sabbatical using credit cards and hotel points. 


Ms. Karla A. Fraser is a higher education professional, international higher education consultant, expat career strategist, current expat, global educator, & entrepreneur. She is also the founder of Roseapple Global, LLC, an expat career coaching and higher education consulting company.

Through expatriate (expat) life, Karla has sought to merge her passion for global adventures with her international affairs background. Her professional career includes twenty (20) years in higher education administration; ten (10) have been international. Her expertise includes student housing management, student services, human resource allocation, staff recruitment and placement, budgeting, and technology implementation. She enjoys empowering staff and students. Additionally, Karla is skilled in strategic planning and policy development for student affairs.

Karla expanded her portfolio by founding Roseapple Global, LLC. The accumulated years of international experiences and mentoring staff has equipped her with the in-depth knowledge needed to prepare and guide her clients. She serves clients through expat career coaching and consulting for student affairs/services. She provided a collaborative approach with her individual, group, and institutional clients to ensure progress towards their goals. Join her and others serving and providing college students an empowering experience. Take the leap aboard!

Her story to date includes being a third culture kid (TCK) in Jamaica.  Karla has lived in seven countries (USA, Jamaica, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Commonwealth of Dominica, Singapore, and Bangladesh). Currently, Karla is living and working in Niger. She has worked in six countries and traveled to 50 others for tourism and cultural enrichment. 

RESOURCES:
Roseapple Global, LLC: https://www.roseappleglobal.com
Roseapple Global Blog: https://www.roseappleglobal.com/blog
 

SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES:
Karla Fraser
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karla.fraser.10
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travelgal45/
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamfraser

 
Roseapple Global
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roseappleglobal
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roseapple.global/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/roseapple-global-llc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/roseappleglobal
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/roseappleglobal/

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Transcript

 [00:02:48] Let's get into it. Carla Frazier, the second Frazier I've interviewed, just so you know.

[00:02:54] Karla:  Who is the other one? 

[00:02:55] Nyra: Francesca Frazier, you know, you must know, you know, the world is very small with us, expat divas, you know, it is, but she's awesome. And I interviewed her and yeah, so she gave me a lot of good stuff and, you know in our interview, which is already up and I looked, you know if you haven't listened to it yet, please take a listen.

[00:03:19] But yeah. Ms. Frazier. So I'm getting to know you, this is a real going to be a real honest, get to know you. Now, what we have in common is that we've both been, are expats, you know? And with that said, I want to take it from the beginning. Tell me a little bit about who you are, where do you come from and you know, what's your background.

[00:03:40] Karla: Sure. So I am a third culture kid. So that being said is being a TCK third culture kid. I was born in the U S I went and lived in Jamaica, which is the country of my parents for a while. And then moved back to the U S [00:04:00] so I have this dual culture, dual experience as a kid growing up. And so that really spurred my adventure and travel and everything else.

[00:04:13] We'll talk about a little bit later, but I came back into the U S went to high school, went to university, got both my degrees and have a degree in international affairs, but I love to travel. 

[00:04:32] Nyra: Now explain to me what exactly entails. I have an idea what international affairs means, but what does it really mean? What does, what, what, what is the international affair schooling like? 

[00:04:45] Karla: So I did a focus on Latin American history, politics and geography. Those were my three focus in my, in my master's program and dabbling a little bit of multicultural communications as well. But the whole idea behind that was to work in international development. You know, things like the UN state department, but at the same time, I was a graduate assistant in student housing residence life. So I was, you know, helping to manage a residence hall. And so I ended up taking a job in student affairs and residence life. And there's the rest of my career I never got into.

[00:05:37] I never got into international affairs at all. Yeah. 

[00:05:43] Nyra: And, and in Latin America now, why was that so fascinating for you?

[00:05:48] Karla:  Actually, I wanted a degree in Caribbean studies because I'm from the Caribbean. However, they, at back when I went to school, there were very few Caribbean studies programs and they weren't independent. They were [00:06:00] part of Latin American studies programs. Yeah, so it was all bunched together as the region. It was Latin America and the Caribbean or something of that nature. So the program that I got into did not have the Caribbean. So I was like, you know, I'll study Latin America. I had studied Spanish for several years in, in high school and college and had an interest in the region anyways, and it was close and I was able to still able to put a little bit of the Caribbean in there in some of my research papers for various classes.

[00:06:30] Nyra: So yeah, moving forward, you got your degrees now. What, what happens after that? So you remain go ahead. 

[00:06:38] Karla: So I'm in the U S I'm working in residence life and student housing across the United States. So I was moving around even in the United States. From one university to another. I had this intentionality that I don't think many people understood. My goal was to become a director of residence life at a medium sized school. And I took what I consider an unusual path. And, you know, if we want to talk about racism or sexism or oppression, Or not being able to be mobile. I decided I was going to create my own mobility. So instead of staying at one institution and just trying to work my way up and get all the experience I hopped from university to university to get the experience in a specific area.

[00:07:29] So I, you know, like I got. Budget experience and managing a big residence hall at one school, I got housing operations and room assignments and all of that stuff at another school. I learned student government and thematic housing and all of that is another school. So I was, I learned conference services and I'll just go. So I was literally pulling all these pieces that's within the portfolio to be a director from [00:08:00] different schools around the country. Now I will say this back then and probably even now, no one liked that they're like, you're hopping around too much. Why can't you stay in one place what's wrong with you?

[00:08:11] And I'm like, there's nothing wrong with me. I have a philosophy of what I'm doing. And this is how I'm doing this. This is I'm creating my own pattern. I'm creating my own trajectory, creating my own professional development essentially and eventually, over the years I started to accumulate all these experiences and knowledge, you know, a year at this school, two years at this school a year and a half at this school, put it all together. Then in 2007, I made the leap abroad.

[00:08:50] Nyra:  So what now let's, let's pause there. So you've accumulated all of these experiences that are clearly going to be a skill set that's going to be needed. Did you, were you aware that it was needed abroad or were you just like it was time or you just wanted to have a different experience? 

[00:09:11] Karla: I've always wanted to live and work abroad. So that's why I got the international affairs degree, but I didn't really know how to do it in higher ed. I had seen all these positions, faculty moving abroad, you know, apply for this teaching position to apply for this teaching position. Or I saw some administrator positions, but they were to senior level positions. They were not like mid-level manager, director positions. They were like associate deans, you know, VPs. And I was like, okay, I'm not there yet. So I just kept, I would apply for things. I learned this philosophy early and I don't remember, I learned it from a colleague that my.

[00:10:00] [00:10:00] Counterparts on the other side of the coin, especially males would apply for a job, knowing that they could only do 25% of the job at best, in some cases, but they have the confidence, they could talk about it, they would figure it out and they would apply for a job. And I was like, Oh, so why can't I do that? So I started applying for jobs overseas that I knew that, okay, technically I can do maybe 25% of this. And eventually as I build my skillsets, it became, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60% of the jobs. And I think that's one of the things that we women do. We don't apply for jobs until we look at it. And we said like, okay, I can do 90% of this.

[00:10:46] Then I'll apply for it. Stop doing that. If you can do more than 30% of the job description. Apply for the job. I'm just telling you that right now. So all you ladies listening, career women, just, just do it. You have the skillset, you have the knowledge,

[00:11:03] Nyra:  it's taken a moment of bravery just to say yes to yourself.

[00:11:07] Karla: Right? Exactly. That's how I really got into applying for jobs abroad, just blindly applying for whatever I saw out there and landed the position 

[00:11:17] Nyra: now. You blindly, you know, apply for these positions when you got on your first job, which I'm sure you'll talk about in a moment. Did you feel like you wish you had a little bit more insight, maybe a bit in a little bit more intentional in which jobs. You want it, you should have applied for or focused on. Does that make sense? What I'm asking? 

[00:11:42] Karla: Yes. In my case, I think I locked up very well. Cause I went from work in a residence life position in the U S to working in a residence life, position abroad. 

[00:11:53] Nyra: Okay. Got you. 

[00:11:54] Karla: So I literally took one leap over the ocean and landed in [00:12:00] a job that was a senior level position at a large university running one of the largest residence hall systems, student housing system in the country and put in my skillsets that I've been building directly into use. Right. So I think over the years that I've moved around Yeah, there are times I was like, okay, is this the right job for me? And I was like, okay, I'll do it. I'll try. I'm not stuck. It's, it's an opportunity. I want to broaden my skillset. And so I've taken positions deliberately sometimes to broaden my skillset or based on my passionate purpose. Cause I think that's a big thing for me. Is understanding my purpose and my passion.

[00:12:43] And I really put it together when I really started to think about moving abroad was it's about travel. It's about education. It's about giving back to institutions students abroad and they look into this way. Many students outside the United States want to come to the United States for their degree. In many cases, they cannot afford it. For whatever reason it could be immigration, it could be financial, it could be family. So there's a variety of reasons. Why a student who wants a US degree cannot come to United States for it. And so for me, Someone with two US degrees and all this knowledge about the U S system and its philosophies and how we develop students on the non-academic side of the house.

[00:13:31] So student affairs, student leadership, I can go somewhere and give that knowledge, that experience to those students. And in turn. I learned their culture, their tradition what things that they bring to the table that I would have never learned if I wasn't in their country. 

[00:13:50] Nyra: That's a great way to look at it, how you, the holder of skillsets and knowledge they could, the location [00:14:00] really doesn't matter as it is about the interaction with a person that has, that can transfer or, you know, and teach. Those skillsets so they can, you know, the other person can acquire it, you know, I think that's, and this is why I always say that, you know, the passport is you, because that happens on every level of every facet, you know what I'm saying? The exposure to each other. So I really, I really appreciate that point and, and your execution of that plan.

[00:14:28] So let's see, do a little run around of all the different places that you've. You know, started. So if you want to, you know, you can start wherever you'd like and end wherever you like. 

[00:14:40] Karla: Okay. So my first job out, it was 2007. I went to the United Arab Emirates, worked in residence life and student housing at their national university. I then came back into the U S in 2009 to end of the year at the almost height, almost height of the re depression, not recession. I think that's what they call it. They call it a recession. Recession. Granted, I think many of us thought it was a depression,

[00:15:13] Nyra:  but many of us now are feeling a little depressed, you know, but the right word for that time was actually a recession. Yes, it was actually go ahead. 

[00:15:25] Karla: So then literally was back in the U S for a couple of years and. This is a fascinating moment because in 2011, I looked at a position in Afghanistan and applied for the position, got offered the position was about to accept the position and then an incident happened and that incident, I was like, no, I can't go. And so I literally declined the position. 

[00:15:55] Nyra: But what's the incident don't leave us hanging. 

[00:15:57] Karla: So this is Afghanistan [00:16:00] is a war zone. The one of the two international hotels there was bombed. Oh, there was an attack. And that's literally that happened literally the day or two days before I was supposed to accept the position. And I was like, I can't do that. I can't go to a war zone. This is not the best thing to do. And so I declined the position and I kept thinking about that for an entire year, because going back to my passion, that's a group of students. That 99% of them will never have the opportunity to come to United States to get an education.

[00:16:41] And there was an institution there that was providing US style education philosophy in teaching learning degrees, which is why I was headed there. And so fast forward, I take a job in Nebraska. In the middle of rural Nebraska and great position. I mean, I became the Dean of students. I had a school of a thousand. It was, you know, it's kind of it's, you're at the senior level. So, you know, you have the staff reporting to you. You're making changes. You are, you know, you're doing it. As a student affairs professional, I mean, come on. You're the Dean of a small liberal, liberal arts college in a small town. I mean, you're it, except that that nagging about going abroad was still in the back of my mind.

[00:17:37] Come, I think it was May, 2012 a year after being there. An opportunity came up in Afghanistan again, the same position I had applied for. It became open. Okay. I sent off an email. I didn't even do a cover letter and resume anymore. I just sent off an email saying, hi, I don't know if you [00:18:00] remember me, but I applied for this last year and wondering if I could reapply for it. And will you accept my application? And they're like, sure. Tell us why you are reapplying. And literally I had three questions I needed to answer. I answered those questions and I said, look, I will come this time. I will come. 

[00:18:21] Nyra: Now that you're there you've landed. And you now feel a sense of renewed, intentional purpose, right? Working with, you know these university students who are getting a glimpse of, you know, education, you know, the educational style I should say, of the United States. Right. And now they're going to use you're there to cultivate residential life for them. Am I am I to assume that that's what you, that's what you did, right? Among other things 

[00:18:54] Karla: somewhat. Yeah. Among other things. So I came in, so this was one of those places when you look at my resume, you're like she went from being Dean to being a student development specialist. So essentially I took a lower title. Funny enough, same pay grade by a lower title. But again, it was skillset building my position of Yannis, Stan. I was going in to be an academic advisor. I was going into be a lecturer teaching first year experience and helping out in other ways in the student affairs office.

[00:19:35] Fast forward. I'm on the ground five months. And my director says to me, you know, you have residence life skills. We need someone to take over the residence life program. Okay. So yes, I went back into doing residence life and taking over the residence life program and helping to shepherd that in many ways, teach training [00:20:00] staff, selecting staff. Working with new student orientation, still retain in teaching, but I taught less classes than I was when I was in my previous position. So I held both positions simultaneously. But it was very rewarding. You know, there were battles and there were challenges, you know it's a coed school in the country that doesn't believe in coed education.

[00:20:24] So that created, you know, some level of tension on campus as well as outside the campus. The students there. I don't think I've ever seen or worked with a, set the students that were so eager to, to learn and, and, and talked so much about, I want to change my country. I don't want this image of my country being at war. I want to do something different. I want to see girls and women; young women get an education. I want this country to be at peace. I want to build a business. You know, just all of this was just inspirational for me. While I was there now I did have to worry about security issues. I did have to dress according to the culture and the norms of the country and things of that nature. But I still, to this day, it's still one of my most rewarding experiences of living and working abroad. 

[00:21:18] Nyra: This is awesome. And this is telling of where you are, where are you now after the Afghanistan? Experience. Where does that take you? Where do you launch from that? Start from that point?

[00:21:33] Karla:  So I went to the Caribbean, so, and as I mentioned before, my family's originally from the Caribbean, but my family's from Jamaica, but I went to the Island of Dominique, a small Island on the Eastern Caribbean side. Okay. And so I went to work there with medical students at a for-profit institution providing medical education [00:22:00] to students who, in some cases, not all would not have had the chance of getting a medical degree and becoming an MD. So our students range from your typical 22 year old, who graduated from.

[00:22:14] You know, university, and in some cases didn't get into a regular medical school in the U S or Canada or students who had been nurses, paramedics engineers, you know, whatever, but they want to be a medical student now, which don't fit into the normal. Medical school admissions process in, in most Western societies, 

[00:22:38] Nyra: connecting with yourself with your own roots, you know? And did you feel like you needed that? I mean, cause that's a very stark difference coming from Afghanistan, which I would imagine the day-to-day living in Afghanistan was a big difference than going to a Caribbean Island. 

[00:22:53] Karla: Yes. 

[00:22:54] Nyra: Would you say that part of that was just, you know, you needed that That change to kind of recalibrate yourself in some way.

[00:23:01] Karla: Yes. Yes. And I think that's why I call it my respite. It was that it was that moment of, I need to re juvenate take down the stress level of the worry level. You know, Island time was real you know, Going out to, you know, the beach on a Saturday afternoon or in my case, I lived close to a beach, so that I, that was walkable.

[00:23:26] Nyra: Oh, that sounds so that's, that's so nice right about now, too. Exactly. As we go through our pandemic right. You know, depression or fatigue, you know, whatever you want to call it. Boy, some of us who are hardcore travelers, we're really struggling right now. 

[00:23:43] Karla: Truly get that. I am too. I am too. I am very much a beach girl beach culture. And so the fact that I have not been to the beach since December, 2019, I'm struggling. 

[00:23:57] Nyra: So you've really run the gamut. I mean, I know you said you lived in [00:24:00] nine countries and visited 50. 

[00:24:03] Karla: I had planned for a one-year career sabbatical, which ended up being eight months, but I took a career sabbatical to build my company Rose, Apple global. And so essentially I hopped between Indonesia and Malaysia for that time period. I strongly believe in following immigration laws, so I wasn't trying to get caught or stay overstayed or anything. So before my time was up in one country, I went and visited the other one or somewhere in there. I went over to Cambodia for the first time to spend like a week for my birthday.

[00:24:40] So it broke things up. But what I did was I started building Rose, Apple global conceptually, before I left Singapore and then took these eight months to really build it out, to build a website, build the services out, start writing my blog. Started putting together courses started to dabble in whether or not I do group coaching you know, started to work with my clients. One-on-one so it's trying to do all those pieces, learning a lot of skills. A lot of it was self-taught.

[00:25:14] Nyra:  It just goes to show you that I think you just realize how capable you are and you probably had the financial means to take a sabbatical.

[00:25:25] Karla:  I did. I deliberately built a cash reserve to take a sabbatical and then use other things that I had available to me because I've been traveling the world and traveling quite a bit. I had banked hotel points. I had banked airline points. I had You know, also been banking points via a one of my credit cards. So I used all those points points from two major hotel chains and a major credit card, US credit card and airlines. To [00:26:00] literally go between the fly between the two countries.

[00:26:03] Once my hotel points ran out, I then found the hotel that I stayed in that was relatively cheap that had services like laundry washer and dryer in it. You know, everyone's like you could have stayed in an Airbnb. Yeah. I could have. But I wanted to stay in a hotel. 

[00:26:22] Nyra: So money was, you were, you were thinking long term, so yeah, I get it right. Absolutely. 

[00:26:30] Karla: And believe it or not, while I was staying in that hotel, I was still building my hotel status. And so between the two hotel brands that I stayed, I. Literally maxed out to the top tiers in both hotels, I'm using my points to stay and then paying to stay at the end to the point that when COVID hit, I still have those statuses and I will have them till the end of 2021.

[00:27:02] Nyra: You have this, this company, you talked a little bit about, you know when you started it, but. Why be a career strategist? Why? Rose Apple global. 

[00:27:15] Karla: So it came out of, I've had friends and colleagues, who'd been asking me, Carla, how are you moving abroad? How are you doing this? How are you moving from country to country? And so I would spend time just sharing knowledge, information, how you do this. And then I realized that I really could do this. When I convinced my best friend that she and I could apply for two jobs in Australia. So there were two open positions at the same university and we both applied for them and she got a position I didn't because they decided that they were not going to hire two positions.

[00:27:55] They were only gonna hire one. And so I literally convinced her to pack up and [00:28:00] move to Australia and to take those job. 

[00:28:04] Nyra: I, she wasn't going to go 

[00:28:06] Karla: There were various circumstances that, you know, she's like, I don't know if I can live in Australia. There were, you know, she had teenage daughters that you'd been moving with her and trying to sort that out with ex-husband and all of a sudden the stuff, you know, they invited her, they flew her to Australia for an interview. And I, I said to her, I said, let me explain something to you. And she, she will collaborate this, do not get on that plane unless you plan, if you do not get on that plane, if you do not plan to take that job, I said, they're not flying you to Australia, so you can see Australia, they are flying to Australia to give a job for you. 

[00:28:50] Nyra: They want you to sign that contract. 

[00:28:52] Karla: Exactly. And so she's like, Oh, okay. So she did, she moved to Australia for two years. 

[00:29:00] Nyra: Do you have any corporate clients?

[00:29:03] Karla:  Not yet. So one of the pieces of Rosa, Apple global is we want, I want to get into consulting for universities specifically in helping them build out their student affairs experiences to be more student centered, be more student friendly. This notion of being student centered and student centric is very North American. So US Canada to be specific. There's a bit of it that happens in central America and South America, just because of our student associations, NASPA and ACPA. There's some of it that happens in South Africa because of the housing association, some of it that happens in Australia and the Philippines.

[00:29:44] But it's very sporadic. It and it's growing, but I would really love the opportunity to spend time helping student schools, universities colleges learn how to be student centric and still not take away from what [00:30:00] they do. And especially during this time of the landscape of higher ed changing because of COVID. And the fact that student affairs has to go digital. In many ways to keep their students engaged, I really want to help with that. And that was one of the big things I did when I was in Bangladesh was because of COVID. I literally had to take all my student affairs units digital and set them up and work with the staff to go digital.

[00:30:26] So I literally have recent experience in transforming a student affairs unit counseling, student activities, student leadership, student government. Student programming, digital, and working with students in doing that. The myth I want to debunk is one that has come up more recently is leave the US or Canada or Europe or your home country on whatever continent it's on for your purpose and your passion.

[00:30:57] Not because there's oppression. And I know that there are reasons to leave for oppression. Violence on rest things of that nature. But if you are voluntarily leaving your country, leave it with a purpose, leave for purpose, leave for passion and whatever that passion is to get more education, to get a better job, to have a sense of independence, freedom, better quality of life to, you know, not being the rat race, whatever it is.