The discourses around globalisation and internationalisation within higher education to date have tended to focus on institutional change. While recognising the importance of these debates, this paper suggests that issues around curriculum change and teaching and learning through global professions such as health and engineering have so far been largely neglected. Using evidence from the UK and Ireland, the paper looks particularly at how students perceive the importance and value of global perspectives to their professions. It concludes by noting that there is evidence of interest in integrating global perspectives within health and engineering degree courses from students, but that this raises major challenges concerning discipline-based knowledge, valuing differing perspectives and approaches towards teaching and learning. (Contains 2 notes.)