Hi everyone! My name is Emily Kwon, and I am from North Wales, Pennsylvania which is about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia (I know, everyone says that). I am currently a Sophomore enrolled in the College of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh. I am pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance. My post-graduation goal is to become a Certified Public Accountant, and I’m currently on track to finish 150 credits in my time here at Pitt to make that a reality. At Pitt, I am in Alpha Kappa Psi’s Delta chapter. Alpha Kappa Psi is a professional business fraternity, and being in AKPsi has contributed to my professional development and network enhancement. AKPsi has also taught me many invaluable skills that I believe will shape my future. Outside of the classroom, I enjoy doing many various activities. When the weather is nice outside, you can always find me in Schenley Park going on walks. Being able to listen to music by my favorite artist, Taylor Swift, and taking a nice walk is so therapeutic to me. No matter how I am feeling before, going on a walk always makes me feel so good afterwards. Another thing that brings immense joy is hanging out with my friends. I know that sounds typical but surrounding myself with people that recharge my battery is one of my favorite things.

In a typical semester, I usually just get caught up with the same routine of lectures and recitations. This semester, I was given the opportunity to participate in the Global Service Learning program at Pitt. I chose to participate in this program because it is so different than anything I have ever done before. It combines my passion for helping individuals with my academics. I think it is an incredible opportunity that I could not pass up. Engaging in this service learning activity that directly benefits these individuals is something I am very excited about. I love to meet and interact with new people, and meeting so many individuals including team members, professors, and the client has already made this course so special. Moreover, I believe this experience will contribute to my personal growth, as it helps me to balance my passion for helping other individuals and my academics. This course has already been such a great learning experience and I know it will continue to get better!

The Global Service Learning course at Pitt is designed for students to help an organization in the country they will be going to over spring break. In my case, I will be working with five other individuals throughout this semester while fulfilling goals to help our organization. We will be visiting Trinidad over Spring Break, which is such an amazing country to visit. I’ve never been to the Caribbean, and I think it is a very cool place I will be able to experience. I love warm weather and Trinidad definitely has that! It will be so nice to experience the nice weather and get out of the frigid Pittsburgh temperatures. Besides how great Trinidad is, throughout this course we will be helping a non-profit organization called Nature Seekers. Nature Seekers is an organization dedicated to helping protect and conserve the sea turtles on the island while also helping the community thrive and be as successful as possible. They engage in many different activities to help both the island and community succeed. Because of climate change there has been a lot of beach erosion on the island, so Nature Seekers monitors the coastline very closely to try and fight it to the best of their ability. Some of their community outreach activities include helping individuals receive items such as diaper bags, food, and sanitary products. Nature Seekers acts like the middleman to distribute these items to the individuals and the community is lucky to have them do these things. After speaking with the representative from Nature Seekers, we have learned of ways that we as a team will be able to help Nature Seekers be the best organization possible. The individuals who work at Nature Seekers are extremely dedicated to helping protect the turtles and conserving the island. That means some of the bookkeeping within their business is a little disorganized. But as a team from Pitt, we are here to help them organize their assets. Our goal is to help them create a user friendly, paperless inventory system that will include all of their fixed assets such as computers, vehicles, and equipment. We will also be including spaces in the filing system that includes the quantity of each asset, their cost, a small description of them, and other information that will allow Nature Seekers to have the easiest experience when searching for their assets. We will also be assisting Nature Seekers in creating social media content so that they can spread their mission across the internet for many people to see. While helping with the marketing aspect we will be creating an array of posts for Nature Seekers to use in advertising their turtle watching tours throughout the year. We will also be designing flyers and infographics to promote the organization so people can learn about what kind of amazing things Nature Seekers does.

We will be working over the course of the semester to create these deliverables. When we visit Trinidad to meet with Nature Seekers over spring break, we will present to them what we have accomplished up to that point, and we will start helping them take inventory using the new system we will have created. We will use all the information we learn on our trip and come back to Pittsburgh to improve our project. We want to be as helpful as possible for this amazing organization. This semester has already been such an enriching experience and I know it will continue to do so. I am excited to continue this journey and see the remarkable work me and my teammates will develop over the semester. Here’s to the rest of the semester and all the positive impact that lies ahead!