Parisa Raad

After managing dental offices for 12 years, Parisa Raad felt stuck professionally. So she quit her job and went back to school to pursue a from UMass Lowell. 

“I was looking for flexibility — something that works for my lifestyle now,” says Raad, who juggles her online class schedule with gig work as an Uber driver in Haverhill, where she lives.

While Raad appreciates the convenience of online learning, she sometimes misses the face-to-face interaction of the physical classroom. She found a way to experience it — and more — by enrolling in a study abroad course on international business in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

“It was great to meet people not only from UMass Lowell, but from other universities around the world,” Raad says of the three-week summer program, which included classes at Queen’s University Belfast, a longtime partner institution of UMass Lowell.

Led by Deborah Casey, an associate teaching professor of marketing, entrepreneurship and innovation, the three-credit course explored the entwined social, political and historical realities of Belfast. Students learned about the Troubles, the violent, three-decade sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestant unionists and Roman Catholic nationalists that largely ended in 1998 with the Good Friday peace accord.

“I went in blind to all the details of what happened, so it was interesting to learn about the history and the leadership in those times,” Raad says. “I feel like I learned about the culture more deeply because you are learning from somebody that is local, that has lived there all their lives.”

Outside of the classroom, Raad and her eight fellow Manning School of Business students visited historical sites and attractions such as the Giant’s Causeway, a unique rock formation of hexagonal basalt columns on the country’s north coast. Raad also made weekend trips to Dublin and Paris.

“I figured, since I’m here, I might as well take advantage of it,” says Raad, who is no stranger to international travel.

Raad was born in Lowell but grew up in Tehran, Iran, where her family is from. She returned to Massachusetts as a teenager and graduated from Andover High School. She then started working in administrative roles in dental offices.

Now, as graduation approaches, Raad’s weighing her options: a potential career in pharmaceutical management, graduate business school, or even applying to dental school — her original dream. 

“I haven’t set my mind on one thing,” she says. “But I know I’ll figure it out.”

Meantime, she will savor her study abroad experience in Belfast.

“The core memory that I will take away from this is meeting new people,” says Raad, who keeps in touch with many of her new friends on a group chat they created during the program. “We became friends in such a short amount of time.”