Study Abroad Experiences
The past two Summer Semesters (Summer 2018-Summer 2019) have both been spent abroad strengthening my globally focused mindset, consulting skills, and fulfilling my international business minor. I have had three separate study abroad experiences:
Summer Semester Abroad @ TUJ in Tokyo, Japan
The entirety of my Summer of 2018 was spent in the beautiful country of Japan. I’ve wanted to go to Japan since I was very young, and studying abroad at TUJ was a goal since I learned of the campus’s existence upon my enrollment at Temple.
Whilst abroad, I fulfilled two of my general business education courses; microeconomics and marketing management. I was also afforded with the opportunity to study practical Japanese, which aided me greatly in the realm of day-to-day communications with Japanese natives. Marketing, however, was a particularly interesting class due to the nature of Japanese advertising and the structure of their business laws and culture.
Our semester long project was to plan a market entry for an Ice Cream Sandwich (our group’s method of entry was a product invention for Meiji). Because MIS has instilled a love of data within me, I was in charge of gathering most of the market data regarding ice cream and other confectionery goods in Japan. I completed surveys, analyzed previous sales data from Meiji, and visited Japanese marketing museums for inspiration (one pictured above in the form of the world famous cup noodle museum!).
Throughout the experience, I kept a personal photo blog.
Global Immersion; Doing Business Abroad @ Copenhagen, Denmark
Immediately following the End of the Spring 2019 Semester, I elected to venture to Copenhagen, Denmark on a Fox Global Immersion. This immersion was led by Marketing Professor Jim Thompson and as such, focused on entrepreneurial marketing tactics abroad, and sustainability. This was a great follow up to my marketing experiences in Japan the summer prior.
Prior to the immersion, we conducted research in small teams on businesses we would be visiting, and general research about Denmark. When focused on businesses, we looked at their marketing practices the business culture specific to the company and Denmark itself, and the economics of the business/country. The immersion itself ran for about 10 days, and included a plethora of office visits to various Danish companies. Companies visited ranged from small watch manufacturing startup Nordgreen, to a monolith of childhood joy: Lego.
Of the company visits we attended, I enjoyed Danish AM Hub the most, on account of my prior Engineering experience. Danish AM Hub is an additive manufacturing firm (3D printing and the like), and spoke at length about how STEM and business now walk hand in hand.
Global Immersion; Expanding a Business Abroad @ Sofia, Bulgaria & Prague, Czech Republic
In August 2019 I attended my second Fox Global Immersion, this time to two countries: Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. The course was led by Professor Seeton of the consulting department. The course was unique in the fact it provided a hands-on, real-life consulting opportunity. The class was divided into two teams – Bulgaria and Czech Republic – who competed against each other to advise Ford on their expansion of Isten Motors into one of two Eastern European markets.
Like the Denmark immersion, the group met with a wide variety of Bulgarian and Czech companies, ranging from cockpit electronics producer Visteon, to European car manufacturer Skoda.
A consulting class in this capacity this is the perfect compliment to my MIS major. Like many MIS students, I plan to move into IT consulting or a business analyst role upon graduation. Digital solutions studio was my first delve into the consulting realm, but this class reinforced many skills and concepts learned last semester. I gained more experience asking “meaty” quality questions, and bettered my skills in analyzing the answers to them.
Throughout the immersion, I kept a blog of my daily on-goings, and cultural insights.