Ever since the 2016 referendum in which the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, Brexit has been a controversial topic of debate. In March of this year, the problem didn’t seem much closer to a solution, despite the previously established March 29 divorce deadline.

In order to learn about the politics around Brexit firsthand, 15 NYU Abu Dhabi students joined Frank Luntz on a whirlwind spring break tour. The goal of this unconventional two credit course was to examine the Brexit deal and the political, economic, social and cultural factors that have plunged it into controversy and delayed it multiple times.

The course syllabus explains that, “This may be the only syllabus ever written without a definitive definition of the course because a simple definition of Brexit itself doesn’t exist.”

Despite uncertainty however, on March 21 the class embarked on their trip to visit Brussels, London and Paris. Over the course of the nine day trip, the class met with over 30 politicians, policy makers, media experts and business executives, in order to develop a deeper understanding of the issue from a multitude of angles.

“The course was kind of premised on the idea that Brexit was largely decided by political elites, so this course gave us the opportunity to travel around Western Europe and engage with those political elites,” Alexander Mackay, Class of 2019, said.

During these meetings, which occurred two or three times a day, the students were expected to lead discussions, adding to the intensity of the experience. Part of the goal of the meetings were to engage students in conversations with professionals that they may not agree with, and prove that a productive dialogue was possible. Consequently, they also exposed these Western European stakeholders to opinions of Brexit from students from some of the many cultures represented at NYU Abu Dhabi.

“Our very first speaker was the Chief Executive of the Leave Campaign. I think he came from somewhere with very different views as my own, but from the get go, I think even though we were approaching someone who has a very different view of the world, there was so much respect there, or there was such a desire to hear the other side of the story and hear everyone out no matter what that viewpoint was,” Hannah Melville-Rea, Class of 2019, commented.

“I think that was a very memorable first meeting that really set the tone for the trip.”

From there the class went on to meet with individuals such as an executive sitting on the negotiation panel, political advisors to the French government, and a primary representative of Britain's remain campaign in the House of Lords.

Abdulla Alhashmi, Class of 2020 said, “I can't speak for Frank, but I believe that he saw an opportunity to expose a group of international students to the inner workings of British and European politics in a way that hadn't been done before.”

According to his students, Luntz was an energetic and engaging teacher. He was able to use connections he had built over his political career to gain access to a uniquely extensive group of individuals. Overall a tremendous amount of thoughtful work went into planning the class to make it work.

Luntz is an expert at engaging people in conversations surrounding controversy. Melville-Rea explained, “I think people are sometimes apprehensive about having conversations, because it can be uncomfortable when people have such different views, but he is very good at sparking those and creating a respectful setting in which people are trying to hear each other out.”

The nature of a class like this is meant not only to educate, but to provide students with life experiences, and expose them to opinions outside the sphere of their everyday lives. As such, there wasn’t a single concept or idea to grasp, but each student was allowed to develop their own understandings of the issue.

When asked about what they learned or was most meaningful during their experience each of the students interviewed for this article responded differently.

Alhashmi “I thought that the most meaningful part of the class was when the professor's tell us to really make use of the opportunities that we were receiving; Opportunities as in getting to hear the perspectives of the decision makers and getting to share our hopes, fears, and recommendations with these decision makers. Douglas Alexander, a three time member of parliament, gave the class a piece of advice I hadn't heard before. He said it was great that we were all international students that were traveling the world and learning about issues beyond our native countries' borders, but, he said, 'if you want to establish yourselves in your home countries, you cannot be away for too long'. It was as if he was saying 'don't forget where you actually come from now that you've started this quest of receiving a global education'”

Melville-Rea “I would still very much be a remainer, but I do think that the second referendum would just be too divisive, and that now the UK is at a point where it probably needs to leave. Whereas before the trip I was thinking that they should just do a second referendum and Brexit shouldn’t happen. I think it was about hearing from both the UK side, the French side, and the EU side and across the board there kind of being a consensus of ‘this just has to happen now…’ I think also just seeing how divided the population was in London. You know, we saw protests both for a second referendum to remain, and for the UK to exit the EU, so I think in that sense, just seeing how people are so split on the issue that to kind of bring it up with the second referendum to me, I don’t think that it would result in any progress.”

MacKay “I think it solidified the importance of engaging with all different perspectives, to seek out… people from different backgrounds, different walks of life, understand… how they interpret a situation, and how important it is to have that comprehensive view of an issue in order to successfully move forward, and finding a solution to it or finding a way forward.”