It’s done. After about three and a half weeks, over a dozen blog posts, and presenting my final project alongside my group, the summer portion of the Haller Global Fellowship Program is over. We did so much in Ireland it felt like it had to have been longer than twelve days. There’s so much to cover in terms of what I’ve learned from the program and what I’ll be taking away from it not just professionally and academically but also personally. However, I feel like I should first go over the climax of my time here: the presentation of my group’s marketing project for Carrigart.
The presentations were done in a meeting room in The Carrigart, Carrigart’s famous hotel. This was the same meeting room we’d been using for several days– a familiar place. The group I was in was the marketing team, as I’ve mentioned before, and my teammates were Astrum Alacón and MacKenzie Szabo. Deciding who presented what was simple, as we had already divided the project into three segments with each of us acting as a point person for a segment. As marketing deals with the town’s current assets, the groups decided that we would be going first. I was incredibly anxious, and yet everything went well. Both my teammates presented their sections before me, and I would be remiss not to mention that their confidence assuaged my own fears. We finished the presentation just as we had planned and were met with a room of smiles. The other two groups followed suit, and they both gave amazing presentations. I’m very glad the final project went as well as it did. When a weight is lifted from your shoulders like this, you begin to realize that it was never very heavy at all.
With this, it’s time to look back upon my time in the program and what it’s given me. It’s hard to separate what was fun and aided me personally from what benefitted my professional and academic development, but for the sake of organization that’s what I’ll be doing(or at least trying to do, as there’s so much overlap!)
First was the Pittsburgh portion of the trip, which lasted two weeks. During this period, I got a lot of time to familiarize myself with the city, and just generally the experience of being in a city. This will be incredibly beneficial to me in a couple of days when the academic year properly starts, as I won’t need to spend as much time getting used to walking around the city and already know great places to get food. I really got a good feel for not just Oakland, but other parts of the city like the Hill District and Strip District. Now, the academic benefits from this part of the program are simple: they come from Managing in Complex Environments, the class we took at a highly accelerated pace. I learned a great deal about how to properly analyze many business situations using methods like PESTLE and SWOT Analysis. Despite the speed at which I learned the material, it’s definitely very ingrained in me and I know that everything I learned will prove essential to my professional success.
As for my time in Ireland, as I have repeated ad nauseum, this was my first time out of the country. I loved being able to experience Ireland, and I’m happy with how the program contained lots of visits to important Irish landmarks. It was enlightening to see just how much is pretty much the same, but also how much is even just a little different, like how water is usually slightly flavored, like with citrus or cucumber, and roads are made or a different material while having a lot more roundabouts. I’d say that the biggest difference was in the people, but that’d be wrong! Everyone I met was at least cordial, if not very polite and friendly. The accents were hard to get used to, but I feel the Irish people I met were much more understanding when it came to repeating things they said, though that may be because I really stuck out as an American(as a group of three young lads reminded me the night of the Downings Festival.) As for what I learned, I got a lot of insight into the tumultuous history of Ireland and its culture. Most importantly, I of course had the wonderful opportunity to gain real-world experience through the Carrigart project. By putting my knowledge to the test in a real-world environment, I’ve gained vital skills for my future career both academically and professionally.
I appreciate what the Haller Global Fellowship Program has given me beyond words. It wasn’t just learning and gaining experience, though that was the most important part- I also had so much fun and met so many new people. This was an excellent prologue to my first year of college, and I can’t wait to go to Pittsburgh for real!
