Pre-departure thoughts by Marika Lee

It’s strange to think that I will be in Vietnam in a few days. My GLC class has been talking about going to Vietnam all quarter and it felt like a day that would never come. I have spent the past couple of days packing and preparing for the trip. The more I’ve done, the more nervous I have become.

I know a little bit about Vietnam, but it does not feel like enough. I have hardly any idea how much products cost in Vietnam. I had $350 exchanged into Dong, the Vietnamese currency. It came out to 4.8 million Dong. Is that a lot? Is it enough? I guess all the unknown about Vietnam is what is making me nervous. I know a fair amount about Vietnamese culture.

When I tell people that I am spending part of my winter break in Vietnam, I think they think that I am joking. Nha Trang is a popular tourist destination in Vietnam, but I don’t think that Americans think of it as a vacation spot. A few people can’t seem to find a reason why anyone would want to go to Vietnam, but Vietnam has become a growing player in the global economy.

I am most excited about being immersed in a different culture. I have never been to a country that has a totally different culture than America. The only other country I have been to is Germany, which is pretty much just like Cincinnati, but with more German spoken, more beer and more BMWs. Vietnam will be a completely different experience. I am excited to try the variety of seafood. I want to learn as much as I can about the culture in the short amount of time I am there.

One thing I am definitely not looking forward to is the 36 hours of travel it is going to take to get to from Columbus, Ohio to Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Introducing winter break correspondents Marika Lee and Matthew Wallace

Marika Lee

Marika is a sophomore studying journalism. She will be spending two and a half weeks over winter break in Vietnam with the Global Leadership Center.

I am going to Nha Trang, Vietnam with the Global Leadership Center (GLC) for the second half of our International Consultant Project. During my GLC class this quarter, my three Ohio University teammates and I have been working with three Vietnamese teammates from Nha Trang University. We have been working as consultants for Vinpearl Land, a resort and spa off the coast of Nha Trang. My teammates and I have been doing research to discover how they can better improve their services to guests. We will finish the project in Nha Trang. All first year students in the GLC work on this project and make the trip to Nha Trang.

I am excited to go to Vietnam, experience the culture and meet my Vietnamese teammates. In my GLC class, we have learned a little about the culture of Vietnam and I am excited to experience it first-hand. One thing I am scared about is the language. I have only learned a couple of words of Vietnamese. I have never been to another country where I could not speak the language.

I have not studied aboard with OU before. I did go on a three-week exchange program to southern Germany with my high school in 2008.

Matthew Wallace

Matthew is a senior majoring in political science and minoring in Spanish, psychology and studio art. He is pursuing a Diversity Studies certificate as well as a Global Leadership certificate. Matthew will also be traveling with the GLC to Vietnam.

I am going to Vietnam (Nha Trang, Ho Chi Minh City and Dalat) with Ohio University’s Global Leadership Center. My GLC class of about 25 is split into several teams that are working in conjunction with Vietnamese students from Nha Trang University. Each pair is assigned to a Vietnamese company who poses a question to be researched. For example, my group is assigned to a TV station in Vietnam and our task concerns finding ways to increase their market share.

I am quite excited to go for a variety of reasons. In particular, I have never traveled outside the United States, and I have always been eager to experience Eastern culture. I am a bit concerned, however, about the political differences due to Vietnam’s communist government. For example, the on-site research of our Vietnamese counterparts has been impeded because government officials didn’t want them poking around a state-owned media facility.

All in all, I look forward to seeing the actuality of contemporary Vietnam in relation to Western conceptions of the country and its people (which are most likely based off of Vietnam War movies).

Introducing fall correspondent Gina Mussio

Gina Mussio is a sophomore majoring in Journalism. She will be studying in Florence, Italy until December.

I did a lot of research before choosing a program. Athena, the program I went through, was one of the better priced programs that offered everything I wanted. I am taking a super-intensive Italian program: 18 credit hours of just Italian! It is challenging, but I have been studying the language for five years now and want to finally be proficient. I improve more every day.

I’ve been in Italy for almost two months now (I came early), but there was a ton of preparation to do beforehand! First I had to plan what I would do with my first month before I moved into my apartment. I ended up traveling and living with relatives. One of the hardest things for me was packing. I wasn’t able to bring two suitcases because I didn’t want to lug two suitcases around while I traveled from city to city during the first month. As a result, now that I’m in more of a stable location, I’ve done quite a bit of shopping. I really didn’t have many fears because this has literally been my dream for as long as I can remember (cliche, but true. I have journals from middle school that talk about my dream to live in Italy.) I was fortunate enough to travel abroad two other times, the first time to Accra, Ghana, where I worked in an orphanage for two weeks, and the second to Seoul, South Korea, where I visited my friend for ten days. These experiences definitely toughened me up and prepared me for problems such as culture shock or homesickness, although of course those things can still be problems occasionally.

Between Athens (Ohio), Springboro (Ohio), and Milan (Italy!) by Spencer Smith

I leave for Milan in less than two weeks.  To put it another way, in two weeks I will be sitting in an Italian cafe, probably sipping coffee and reading philosophy that I don’t completely understand.  And it’s starting to be scary.

It’s been a very, very short summer.  Most of the preparation is done at this point, although there are a couple of important things left to do, like obtain euros and electric outlet adapters, and of course, I have that odious chore of packing.  But I’m feeling pretty confident with my preparations…and I should be, because I’ve spent my entire summer stressing out about the big things.

Like plane tickets. The tickets were the first major hurdle I had to jump over.  If I had to do it all over again, I would have thought about it less.  I would have been less concerned with price and more concerned with what my needs were.   As it was, I (and when I say “I,” I really mean my mom because she’s wonderful) spent almost a month going back and forth with a travel agent who was trying desperately to find me a deal.  She never found me a deal.  Instead, she found me a bunch of cheap flights that weren’t what I wanted.  I finally came to the conclusion that my comfort was worth the couple hundred dollars, especially when I was already droppin’ a G on the thing anyway.  So now all of my layovers are in the U.S. (Newark, NJ to be exact), and I have long layovers, so I have plenty of time to find my flights.  And I’m happy!

Then a visa. I applied for my passport long before I came to college because my parents speculated that I would want to study abroad.  I’m glad I did that.  It made my life slightly less stressful this summer.  However, Italy requires its foreign students to also have student visas, so I had to do that this summer.  I think that applying for this visa was perhaps the strangest experience I’ve ever had.  I did some research on the internet and found out that the Italian consulate with jurisdiction over Ohio was located in Detroit.  They require that you apply for the visa in person so my mom and I begrudgingly scheduled a day trip to the Motor City.  We found the consulate rather easily; I signed in, and then I waited around for someone to call my name.  A woman called my name less than ten minutes later, I handed her my paper work through a window and then she told me to have a nice day.  I was shocked.  I had no idea it was going to be that easy.  I got my visa in the mail two days later.  And that’s how I spent twenty minutes of my summer in Detroit.

Lastly, the luggage. I bought a really big duffel bag.  It’s really big.  My dad says he wants to hide away in it and come with me.  He could, and I would still have room for clothes.  My dad is 6′ 2″.  That’s how big this duffel bag is.

So I am prepared.  But when people ask me if I’m excited about the trip, I find myself thinking more and more that I’m more scared than excited.  I think that’s alright.  If I wasn’t scared about this whole thing, I would be worried about myself, and I know I’m going to have a great time once I’m there.

And I will be able to wash all of that fear away with Italian coffee in two weeks!

Introducing fall correspondant Kate Bargerhuff

Kate Bargerhuff is a junior studying journalism and political science. She will be spending three months in Cardiff, Wales.

This fall I will be studying abroad in Cardiff, Wales, where I will be working as an intern for the Welsh National Assembly. I won’t know exactly what I’m doing until I get there, so I’m really looking forward to getting started! I chose this program because I needed an internship as part of my journalism major, and this seemed like a great opportunity to complete my internship requirement, study abroad and learn about a completely new government all at the same time. I mean, we’ve all spent years studying United States government, but who knows anything about Welsh politics? At the moment I’m pretty nervous because I’ve never been to Europe before and I’ve also never traveled on my own, but I’m hoping it will be a great experience!