This project as been a journey; an experience that I will never forget not only because of the my growth as a business student but because of the connections I formed with my team, CEOLI and Bolivia itself. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I take the stance of not having any expectations; I act as though I am a blank canvas. However, there were was one thing that really took me by surprise and that is how much I actually enjoyed working professionally across borders and on an international level. I realized that I made the right decision in choosing Global Management as my major. Working on projects that crosses borders has got me hooked and I am actively looking for new opportunities in the field.

One of the readings that I saw come into effect the most was “Developing Intercultural Competence.” For example, the 100 Dollar Solution model was an element that we used in our work with CEOLI. Prior to arriving we thought we had an idea of what they needed and what kind of questions to ask, however those assumptions were thrown out the window once we analyzed the situation in-country. The most instrumental aspect of the 100 Solution Model that we implemented was the identify the needs of the community members themselves. In the context of CEOLI, I interpret this as the people doing the work on the ground, at the lowest level and engage with the kids the most; and those people are the staff. With any organization there will always be a disconnect between administration and staff. My team and I made a conscious decision to give higher importance to the staff’s priorities and needs as opposed to what the administration thought the staff needed. It was due to this decision that we were able to achieve the connections we have formed once we came back home.

A critical transferable skill I developed was proactive team alignment and conflict management. When working in ambiguous environments, teams can easily drift which was precisely what took place a few days into our project. Our team began to lose focus due to undefined goals and with how busy the staff at CEOLI were, it only made things more confusing. Recognizing this drift, I took the initiative to gather the group for a brief morning meeting before we dispersed. Instead of letting the confusion fester, I summarized our core objectives, clarified our scope of work, and explicitly outlined the specific deliverables we needed to focus on to get back on track. This directly aligns with the behaviors of Quadrant 1, “The Ideal Team,” as outlined in the conflict management reading. The reading notes that a distinguishing factor for successful teams is how proactive versus reactive their approach is to conflict management. By explicitly discussing our goals and expecting potential workflow bottlenecks before, we prevented ourselves from slipping into a Quadrant 4 “Minimize Misery/Avoidant” dynamic, where teams often suffer from an unorganized or ad hoc approach to problems. Instead of letting the ambiguity escalate turn into a reactive cycle of fixing mistakes, we used proactive communication to establish a shared focus. We ensured everyone knew how their specific contributions served the overarching team goal rather than getting bogged down in individual frustrations. This skill is incredibly important for my future professional life because the ability to halt momentum, clarify the scope of work, and ensure an efficient distribution of tasks is essential for preventing scope creep and more importantly seeing to that the client receives the deliverables of the highest quality.

Conducting international service-learning is difficult without a foundation of trust. Pitt’s pre-existing relationship with CEOLI was a massive strength because it opened doors immediately, allowing us to interact intimately with the staff without having to build credibility from nothing. However, I would say this established relationship also was a minor issue because the partnership existed primarily at the administrative level. Our initial project brief was based on what leadership thought was needed which created a disconnect with the ground-level staff who had a different things to say about what they actually needed. Meeting and visiting CEOLI on-site and in-person helped us understand this disconnect and pivot accordingly. In a professional interview, I would pitch this experience as a project that synthesizes cross-cultural communication, management, leadership and teamwork. My explanation of GSL Bolivia would focus on describing the core operational challenge we faced and the strategic pivot that we executed to solve it. I would summarize the initial scope and detail the misalignment we discovered upon arrival. I would describe the steps I took to navigate this, specifically how I adapted our on-site methodology by abandoning formal, disruptive interviews and instead utilizing a mix of participation and observation to build genuine connections with the staff. The focus of my pitch would be demonstrating my ability to navigate ambiguity, realign the team on the fly, and successfully adapt the project to address the client’s true needs.

My advice to future GSL Bolivia students would be the following:

Dissonance: Your initial expectations will inevitably clash with the reality on the ground. Do not reject this discomfort; use it to adjust your approach. When you are there, set your scope aside and help the staff out in the moment. Allow your project’s scope to evolve based on actual human relationship-building.
Proactive: Do not wait for your team to become frustrated or disorganized. If you feel that everyone is losing sight of what needs to be done, call everyone to re-focus and think back to the scope/deliverables.
Reciprocity: You are there to learn as much as you are there to help. Ensure your project focuses on building capacity rather than continuing dependency. Engage with the staff as equals and observe what is going on around you. Put in effort to learn about them and their backgrounds; the relationships you build and the mutual understanding you foster are the most valuable outcomes of the trip. Frank and down-to-earth conversations > boring interviews. You will glean more information by doing this than a typical interview.

To wrap up this course and the journey it has been I would like to do a round of “thank you-s”. I would like to thank my teammates Josh, Preston, Audrey, Kayla, Varsh, Marrissa and Leena; our program coordinators Steph and Bryan, our tour guide from AllPeopleBeHappy Arielle; translator Marion and lastly the wonderful staff at CEOLI for making this project an experience of a lifetime.
I will look back on these memories fondly…