Hello, my name is Victoria Weaver, and I am a sophomore turning junior majoring in Business Information Systems and Business Analytics with minors in Italian Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. At Pitt I am a part of many different clubs, during this upcoming fall semester I will find myself as the president of Students Engaging in Conversations about Consent and Sexuality, the fundraising chair of Take Back the Night, and a member of Smart Women Securities. Outside of the University of Pittsburgh, I work with Allied Universal as event security, this job has introduced me to many people and has allowed me unique experiences I would have been unable to experience otherwise. Last summer I participated in the Plus3: Cyprus program, I have also been abroad personally to both Scotland and Ireland.

My program is the Global Business Institute: Sydney summer program, during this program I will be in Sydney for seven weeks where I will be taking a course about analyzing and exploring Sydney as well as completing a part-time internship with a company called Mobile Eye Clinic. I choose this program because I have wanted to visit Australia for a while, recently one of my friends just returned home from spending a semester in Sydney with their own college and being able to hear and see photos from their own experience has made me very excited for mine. I have always had an interest in Australia even if I do hate spiders. What was once a prison colony and now an amazing country I am excited to learn more and experience what Sydney is like.

I hope to gain a lot from this experience, amazing photos and experiences that I can share for years to come, a greater cultural knowledge of our world by being able to explore another country and city, a greater understanding of business internationally in areas outside of just supply chain.

My three goals for this experience abroad are to have a wider understanding of how business may operate different in different countries and how working for these businesses may differ, a better understanding of the challenges of traveling solo and how to overcome some of them so I may be more willing to travel solo in the future and plan trips that may also help with various jobs in the future if I work in a career where travel is expected, and lastly I wish to be able to understand how universities in other countries may work differently than those in the United States especially over what will be their winter.