We're Going to Argentina & Chile!

Although I have known for a few months that I will be traveling to Argentina and Chile in March, it really just sunk in during our first class last Friday. In order to prepare, we will have class once a week before the trip to learn about the culture, history, language, and business norms of both countries.

The group I will be traveling with is a total of 14 people - 13 MBA students and Professor Luciana Echazu (or "Lu" as we call her), an economist who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at Clarkson. Lu has lead trips similar to this for undergraduate students several times and is a native Argentinian, so I know we are in great hands!

For our first class, we went over our trip's itinerary. If the other students are anything like me, they've been anxiously waiting to hear which cultural landmarks and businesses we will be visiting. I'm happy to report that we will be going to a wide variety of companies, including some local, family-owned businesses and some international corporations like IBM and HSBC. You'll all hear more about them later in the semester!

The second thing we did in class was talk about the language. Lu explained that while the official language in both Chile and Argentina is Spanish, each country has its own dialect, so things may be pronounced differently. We had a great teacher, Lu's daughter Isabella, to go over some basic phrases. It was a great start to the class and I look forward to learning more!

I'll be blogging every week leading up to our trip, so make sure to check back every Monday. Chao!