Hello! My name is Natividad Torres; I am from Reading, Pennsylvania. I am a Junior at the University of Pittsburgh’s College of Business. I am currently enrolled in the Trinidad Global Service-Learning program. I have a great interest in going into the legal field for post-graduation and thus law school will likely be the next step for me. I am double majoring in Supply Chain Management and Global Business Management, which was a huge factor in my decision to pursue and apply for Global Service-Learning.
The Global Business Management major requires an experiential learning component, and among the available programs Pitt offers I felt that Global Service-Learning spoke to me both academically and professionally the most. My decision was solidified after meeting with Phil Hnatkovich, the Trinidad program advisor, who was also my professor last semester. While I was interested in all program locations, his passion for the Trinidad program fully convinced me that Trinidad was the program that would be best for me. Phil had talked to me about Nature Seekers as very multifaceted in what they do for their main objectives like sea turtle conservation and cleaner beaches, but also how they are very community oriented. That framing made it clear that when in Trinidad there will be many activities both from Nature Seekers and their community that will help to immerse myself better. This was only reinforced by the conversation that I was able to have with the rest of my group members with Nature Seekers themselves. They answered our questions about how our work will directly impact them and their community and what we needed to keep in mind to be successful. They were very excited about us working on our consulting project for them and highlighted many experiences we can look forward to once we as a group are on the ground in Trinidad. In the first part of the course for Global Service-Learning I feel that I have academically started to develop transferrable skills relating to consulting that I can utilize and workshop as I continue through the program. Specifically, I feel that this course has delved into leadership and proper communication skills and how to be adaptive or flexile when being an active listener and when working on the project as a whole. My professional goal is to exercise these skills to gain more experience in using them, as consulting skills are useful in legal professions as well. Academically I hope to learn more about project management and proposal writing as it relates directly to our deliverables but are also just generally, I would love to have more personal knowledge on.
I personally am very fortunate to be enrolled in the Global-Service Learning as I have felt more fulfilled doing work for our deliverables and other work with my team than I have in any other opportunity I have had here at Pitt. I truly cannot stress enough how enjoyable this program has been so far, but also, I am really excited for the rest of the semester and my ability to prove my worth. As the pieces start to fall into place, I look forward to learning more about Trinidad before we go in country and then being able to get the most out of the experience.