Hi Blog! As I’m writing this, we are officially 3-4 days from our departure date. I can go on and on about aspects of this trip that I’m excited about, but for the purpose of the blog I’ll start with focus specifically on the personal, academic, and professional side.
To start, personally, this will be just my second time leaving the country besides my prior study abroad experience this past May. As I consider the participating in Plus3 Program legitimately the best decision of my life, I cannot wait to have another similar experience. As my Plus3 Cyprus trip was a close duration to the Trinidad trip, I know how quickly it will go by, so I’m looking forward to savoring every minute!
When it comes to my academic excitement, I’m thrilled to finally talk to the clients we’ve been working with, hear their feedback, and adapt to what they request, putting our consulting skills into actual practice. Consulting has been an area of work I’ve definitely been interested in, but as I’m only a sophomore haven’t had much opportunity to delve into it. So far, the global service-learning class has given me a great taste of the foundations of consulting and continues to intrigue me to learn more! This program also gives me a way to complete the International Business Certificate that I am looking to pursue.
Finally, my professional excitement. As someone who got the travel bug once leaving the US for the first time, it immediately confirmed my thought of wanting to work abroad. This program not only gives me international work experience, but also helps me stand out as a candidate for potential future employers.
Overall, I am super excited to finally head to Trinidad!
When it comes to the cultural norms of Trinidad, some of them may pose challenges to the business we have to conduct while we are in country. Something I was thinking about includes “Trini Time”. “Trini Time” is essentially the way life operates in Trinidad and represents their super laid-back stance on time. Prior to being in country, “Trini Time” was a little apparent when it comes to email response time, but other than that communication has been great! I’m curious to see how “Trini Time” will affect us while in country if it ends up happening at all. Another concern of mine relates to how their business culture specifically regarding marketing differs from ours. One of the deliverables we have been preparing for our client is a series of Instagram and Facebook posts they can use for their own social media. When making certain infographics, our group had some different approaches to how these marketing deliverables should look. Should it look super professional or rather more fun? Being able to present these deliverables and seeing if it’s what they expect will be super interesting and I’m excited to hear their feedback! My final thought on cultural norms is the Trini accent. The Trini accent is super thick and can be somewhat hard to understand at times, especially when talking fast. Based on previous calls with the client, it personally hasn’t been a challenge for me to understand, but I’m curious as to when we meet more people if my group and I will run into this as an obstacle.
As our schedule is filled with plenty of different activities, we’ll have many personal learning opportunities that arise from participating in global service-learning. Being able to work hand-in-hand with clients is something I’ve never had the chance to do before. I assume this will allow for me to gain a greater understanding of their business and general business practices, which will ultimately give our group a better idea of our client, Nature Seekers, wants from us, and will only be beneficial for both parties. During our week in Trinidad, we have the time to actually participate in some of the tours and activities that they offer. I am extremely excited to (hopefully) see some turtles during their nesting season as I feel like that would completely change my perspective on the work we’re doing. It makes it much more real as it will open my eyes to how the business work we’re completing for the client helps them save time to which they can then use elsewhere doing what they do best. Service learning also opens doors to learn more about the culture we will be immersed in. As someone who, prior to this course, knew little to nothing about Trinidad, I’m psyched to finally be in country to meet and talk with local Trinidadians and to experience the culture they love to share with the world.
Throughout the course of this semester, we have been reading various articles that relate to global service-learning in some way. I can think of a few in particular that really resonated with me and had me thinking about even my past experience while reading. My favorite article so far is titled, “Points of Discomfort: Reflections on Power and Partnerships in International Service-Learning”. The reason why this article really stuck out to me is because it talks about an uncomfortable part of service-learning, when things go wrong. The article highlights a group from Canada that travels to Cuba to perform service-learning. Whether it be the group accidentally causing damage when they were trying to perform a helpful service, issues with mealtimes at camp, or also forgetting to offer taxis to the Cubans they were with, which raised concerns regarding the colonial historical background, challenges do arise in these types of situations. While causing any harm is obviously not our intention and definitely wasn’t the intention of the Canadians in the article, stuff happens. This article really made me think about going to Cyprus. While I was there, I don’t think I was disruptive, but it really made me question and reflect as to if I would have come off that way to a native Cypriot. It also helped open my eyes to how I will act when I’m in Trinidad. I feel like this article woke me up while reading it and is really gonna help me be conscious of each and every action I take while abroad. The next two articles I’d like to highlight go hand-in-hand with each other as they each talk about characteristics that are important to have while working as a team. In the article called “Principles of Effective Project Team Management”, 10 key characteristics are stated and explained as to why they are important within team projects. After reading this article I was able to look at all of these characteristics and I then I thought my strengths and weaknesses were as a worker. After identifying these characteristics, I’m able to find areas of our work that I am able to exceed in while asking for guidance in areas I’m weaker in. The other article, called “Ethics in Project Management” states a list of things to consider when working in a partnership. This, just like the “Points of Discomfort” article, opened my eyes to things I hadn’t considered before and has helped me think consciously about ways I directly interact with the client. Overall, the articles we’ve read in class so far have been super helpful and have given me a much deeper understanding on service-learning as a whole which I am grateful for!
Before I wrap up my blog I’d like to talk more about some of the interesting things we’ve learned about regarding the requests of our clients, specifically relating to the fixed asset inventory tracking system framework we are creating and the marketing deliverables. At first, I had no idea how fixed asset inventory tracking systems worked, but after doing some extensive research, it’s a lot more clear. In our case, we’ve begun to make a transition from tracking assets based off when they were acquired to rather what category of use they fall under. These categories include a plethora of different things ranging from “research” to “education and awareness”. While we are transitioning away from acquisition date, that piece of information will still be included in the item’s description. We found that organizing it this way makes sorting more efficient. With respect to the marketing deliverables, I have had no prior experience making any sort of these in my past. Despite that, I was able to quickly learn that using when a platform like Canva or Photoshop, it’s honestly really fun and enjoyable to do. This part of our work was definitely a big switch up from the Excel part of the deliverables and was super refreshing to work on.
In conclusion, this spring break will surely be one I will never forget, creating brand new memories, trying many new activities and foods, and I am excited to provide valuable work for a deserving client. Already, I’ve learned so much about aspects of business I haven’t had the chance to study in my college career up until this point and I’m thrilled to learn more.