Ethical Issues in My Profession:
For the most part, I found that many of the companies we visited in Chile had similar policies to those of companies in the United States regarding ethical issues. Working standards and safety policies seemed to be high and although we weren’t given any exact information on this, wages and benefits seemed good for the workers as well. I also found that the owners of the companies seemed to really respect and know who was working for them. For example, the owner of Conservas Centauro was the fourth generation in his family to own the company – his great grandfather actually founded the company about 100 years ago. Many of the workers there were also fourth generation and their great grandparents had started working at the company at the same time it was founded. The owner here also seemed to know a lot about all of the workers, including what they did in the off seasons. I think that in many companies in the United States, this kind of relationship between owner and worker is uncommon.
In terms of diversity, I did not find the workplaces to be as diverse as they are in the United States. However, I don’t think this is due to a lack of addressing diversity in the workplace, but rather a lack of diversity in the general population. The United States is a very diverse country with all kinds of ethnicities, while Chile has a population of mostly European and mestizo. Thus, this racial diversity is not really an ethical issue faced in the workplace in Chile. I do feel that gender diversity was addressed and that women and men are given equal opportunities in the workplace. With a liberal, woman president, I would imagine that there are regulations to prevent gender discrimination at work.
Educational Breath as Professional Development:
Understanding the impact of engineering and business solutions in a global and societal context is beyond important in today’s world, it is absolutely crucial. The world has become so interdependent that almost all business decisions made in our country affect someone, somewhere else in the world. As Americans, we often overlook the importance of the global economy and focus more on ourselves. However, as Thomas L. Friedman puts it in his book, The World is Flat, “the playing field is becoming leveled” and countries such as China and India are becoming major world players. The world is becoming smaller and smaller and individuals from most countries in the world are finding more opportunities to be a competitive force in the global economy. This is a huge thing for business owners and students to consider in both Chile and the United States as the global workplace is constantly evolving and creating new challenges.
For this reason, I am definitely a firm believer that students in both the United States and Chile need to expand the classroom experience to include learning about different cultures. For me, this means continuing my studies in language, looking into whatever classes Pitt offers on the global economy, and studying abroad as much as possible. Exposure to and knowledge about different cultures in this day and age can definitely give an individual a high competitive advantage. What’s more is that in four years, by the time we graduate, the global economy will have changed even more and we need to be prepared for whatever new challenges could come our way. In the "Did You Know?" video that Manuel Madrid showed us during lectures, we saw the importance of the Internet and being connected to people from all over the world. The one fact that has really stuck with me from that video is that in ten years, it is predicted that China will be the number one English speaking country in the world. This fact speaks for itself as it shows that we as Americans have to become more aware of others cultures and how the world is changing.
Lifelong Learning, Continuing Education as Professional Development:
All of life is a learning experience and no matter what you do to prepare for a job, there is always a certain amount of learning that occurs from day to day experiences. And as mentioned in the above section, the global economy is constantly evolving and changing. There is no way that a person can be completely prepared to compete in the future with just the knowledge he or she has of today. For example, in the Santiago Stock Exchange, brokers now do most of their work from their offices, on their computers. Five to ten years ago, the floor was bustling with brokers doing their jobs but when we visited the company, there were only two brokers going about with their work on the floor. These brokers had to learn an all new way of doing their job because of the Internet and computer phenomenon.
With all kinds of business, the search for process enhancement and product differentiation leads to new technologies that produce more efficient and different ways of doing business every day. Individuals in the work place need to be prepared to learn new technologies and new ways of performing their duties if they wish to compete in the future and even in today. Just as knowledge about the ever-changing global economy is crucial, so is the ability to embrace these changes and to learn new ways of utilizing the latest technologies. Doing so is the only way to maintain a competitive advantage in the global economy.
The Social Environment of Professional Life:
With the upcoming presidential election and our country currently in the midst of a heated race for the Democratic Party nomination, we were lucky to have been able to travel abroad and see what the rest of the world thinks about what is going on in our country. For many of us, I think it was an eye opening experience to find out just how much people around the world know about the current events in our country. In Chile, almost everyone with whom we talked knew about the upcoming election and had an individual opinion on the matter. I am ashamed to say that before I decided to apply to Plus 3 Chile, I had only a little bit of knowledge on what the political scheme of the country was and I was very unaware of any of the current events. With the world becoming more and more connected, it is unacceptable to be ignorant of what is happening in countries throughout the world. If an individual wishes to be a player in the global marketplace, there comes a responsibility to be aware of news not only close to home, but everywhere else in the world as well. Not only is it important to know the current events of a country, but also to know the customs and business routines when dealing with international clients. It would be very easy to offend an international client by simply being ignorant, but then again, it would also be very easy to do a little research and learn more about the world.
Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams:
Being able to function in a diverse team with people of different race, gender, religion, values, knowledge, etc is a vital skill. Throughout an individual’s lifetime, he or she will probably have to work in numerous different groups and the ability to communicate effectively with people with different backgrounds is the only way to be able to get a project done. Having spent only two semesters in college, my teamwork skills have already improved significantly. I have learned that when working in groups, you have to learn how to get past differences. Even when you aren’t getting along with the other members of the group, you have to remember that each member in the group shares the common goal of finishing the project to a high standard. If nothing else, all members of a group share that common thread.
I found it interesting to see how business and engineering students separated themselves on this trip. In the beginning, many of the engineering students stayed with other engineering student, while the business students stayed with other business students. It is easy to see that this happened because each of us had built up comfort with other people from our majors just by having spent the past two semesters in classes with them. However, by the end of the trip, the separation between “engineering student” and “business student” was not as distinct. In fact, I think that everyone, including myself, had formed new friendships that are beyond the matter of major. There are of course differences between business and engineering students because we have all had different experiences and have learned different things in our classes. However, we are all students at Pitt and share more commonalities than we do differences because of this fact.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Friday, May 16
The last day... I can't believe that it is over. To make sure that I had bought everything I needed to buy during this trip, a group of us went back to the boardwalk this morning to do just a little bit more shopping. Throughout the trip, people have been buying the hats that have ear flaps and a woven llama pattern. I didn't think that I would want to buy one of the hats at first but today I bought two and I have to say that I am very happy with my purchase. I also bought a scarf for my sister, and so now I am officially done with shopping for myself and for my family. Before going back to the hotel to pack, we stopped at McDonald's to get one last bite of authentic Chilean cuisine.
We said goodbye to the hotel and to our favorite emapanda places as we pulled out of Vina to go to the airport. At the airport, we got dinner at Ruby Tuesday and were laughing that our last meals in Chile were at McDonald's and Ruby Tuesdays, two very American chain restaurants. Now, we are waiting to get on the plane to take the 10 hour plane ride back to our normal lives. It has been fun.
We said goodbye to the hotel and to our favorite emapanda places as we pulled out of Vina to go to the airport. At the airport, we got dinner at Ruby Tuesday and were laughing that our last meals in Chile were at McDonald's and Ruby Tuesdays, two very American chain restaurants. Now, we are waiting to get on the plane to take the 10 hour plane ride back to our normal lives. It has been fun.
Thursday, May 15
Today was our last full day in Chile and I can't believe that the trip is coming to an end. We started the day off with our last company visit, Multiplant which grows and sells ornamental plants. We all kind of thought that we wouldn't enjoy this company visit as much as the other, just because it seemed like the smallest and least interesting of all the companies. However, it was a lot more enjoyable than some of the other visits in which we only received lectures on the company. At Multiplant, the owner of the company took us through the greenhouses and showed us the different plants that they are currently growing. I found it interesting that they company is trying to make a big push for more tourism and are trying to attract more visitors. So far, they have tried to do so by adding a llama farm and a gift shop, but I think they have more plans for the future.
After Multiplant, we went to what was listed on our itinerary as 'day at the farm." Turns out that "farm" means spa. I was pretty excited because I thought it would be nice to get a massage or manicure and just spend the day relaxing. Unfortunately however, the spa was completely booked already and we could not get any appointments. Instead, we spent the entire day laying out in the sun, playing cards and ping-pong, and drinking the endless amounts of free beer. All in all, I enjoyed having a day to relax but at the same time, it would have been nice to have another visit to Santiago to do more sight-seeing. I guess I am just going to have to add more things to my list of things to do when I come back to Chile some day.
After the bus ride back to Vina Del Mar, we had our farewell dinner at Diego pizza. We gave the Chilean students Pitt hats, and they gave us really nice polos that have the logos of both the University of Santa maria and the University of Pittsburgh. Tomorrow, we leave and I am feeling that I am going to miss being in Chile a lot.
After Multiplant, we went to what was listed on our itinerary as 'day at the farm." Turns out that "farm" means spa. I was pretty excited because I thought it would be nice to get a massage or manicure and just spend the day relaxing. Unfortunately however, the spa was completely booked already and we could not get any appointments. Instead, we spent the entire day laying out in the sun, playing cards and ping-pong, and drinking the endless amounts of free beer. All in all, I enjoyed having a day to relax but at the same time, it would have been nice to have another visit to Santiago to do more sight-seeing. I guess I am just going to have to add more things to my list of things to do when I come back to Chile some day.
After the bus ride back to Vina Del Mar, we had our farewell dinner at Diego pizza. We gave the Chilean students Pitt hats, and they gave us really nice polos that have the logos of both the University of Santa maria and the University of Pittsburgh. Tomorrow, we leave and I am feeling that I am going to miss being in Chile a lot.
Wednesday, May 14
On the itinerary, we originally had "Multiplant" and "Activities at the University" listed for today. However, we will be going to Multiplant tomorrow instead of today and we unfortunately are still unable to return to the University. Instead, we had another free day with a soccer game in the afternoon with the Chilean students.
A group of us decided to spend the morning visiting some of the castles located around Vina Del Mar. Our first stop was a Castillo Wulf. I never got to know the significance of the castles we visited because all the information was in Spanish, but hopefully when I get home, I can find more information on what I saw today. Anyway, Castillo Wulf was a very picturesque building located on rocks looking out over the sea. We spent some time admiring the view and also some time walking around the museum inside the castle. While there, we also picked up a map of the other sights in Vina. We were supposed to meet the group at 2:00 to go to the soccer game but we asked if we could skip the game and instead do more sightseeing. She said it was okay and so we spent the entire day walked around Vina. We saw all the castles, old mansions, and various other sights such as the theater, the Vina Del Mar club, an Easter Island museum (my favorite part of this museum were the shrunken heads which were used as trophies of war during the time of the Machu Pichu), and some very old churches. It was interesting to me because a lot of the sights we saw today and what I have seen of Chile so far looks a lot like something you would find in the United States. I guess I expected a lot of the sights to be a lot older and to have a lot more history than they do. I shouldn't be surprised though, considering the fact that North and South America were founded and colonized by European settlers around the same time. The U.S and Chile are still both very young countries compared to a lot of the rest of the world.
A group of us decided to spend the morning visiting some of the castles located around Vina Del Mar. Our first stop was a Castillo Wulf. I never got to know the significance of the castles we visited because all the information was in Spanish, but hopefully when I get home, I can find more information on what I saw today. Anyway, Castillo Wulf was a very picturesque building located on rocks looking out over the sea. We spent some time admiring the view and also some time walking around the museum inside the castle. While there, we also picked up a map of the other sights in Vina. We were supposed to meet the group at 2:00 to go to the soccer game but we asked if we could skip the game and instead do more sightseeing. She said it was okay and so we spent the entire day walked around Vina. We saw all the castles, old mansions, and various other sights such as the theater, the Vina Del Mar club, an Easter Island museum (my favorite part of this museum were the shrunken heads which were used as trophies of war during the time of the Machu Pichu), and some very old churches. It was interesting to me because a lot of the sights we saw today and what I have seen of Chile so far looks a lot like something you would find in the United States. I guess I expected a lot of the sights to be a lot older and to have a lot more history than they do. I shouldn't be surprised though, considering the fact that North and South America were founded and colonized by European settlers around the same time. The U.S and Chile are still both very young countries compared to a lot of the rest of the world.
Tuesday, May 13
Today, we left at 10:00 am to go to Pablo Neruda's home on Isla Negra. I had heard that this was a pretty fantastic thing to do when in Chile, so I was pretty excited for it. Outside his home are a bunch of artisan vendors that sell a lot of the same things that all the other vendors have, but they also had a lot of pretty glass items such as wind chimes and bottles. We didn't really have a lot of time to shop around because we had to go straight to Pablo Neruda's home for our tours. We split into four groups depending on Spanish proficiency. There was one tour guide who spoke English so there was one group who went with her, two groups who went on a Spanish spoken tour with a translator, and one group who went on a Spanish tour without a translator. I was in the completely English group and i was really glad because the tour guide was from Rochester, New York and she was a very interesting woman. After the tour, she told us about how she had gotten to Chile and how she had gotten to be a tour guide at Isla Negra. Apparently, she had been in Chile for Pablo Neruda's funeral, which was around the same time as the military coup. She talked about seeing all the men in uniform with guns around the funeral procession. After she went back to the United States, she met a Chilean man who had been in prison. They fell in love and after saying in the United States for about 16 years, they moved back to Chile and that is how she got here. I thought that was really interesting and I was glad that someone asked her about her story.
The tour itself was also fantastic. Everything in Pablo Neruda's life was symbolic for something, or reminded him of something he loved. For example, he always wrote with green ink to remind him of the forests of the South of Chile where he grew up. There are a lot of things about his house and him that are a bit strange but interesting all the same. There was one room that contained a large life-size horse made of paper mache that Neruda had purchased after 45 years of bargaining. He didn't have a room in his house to fit it when he finally got it, so he built a new room and had a welcoming party for the horse to which which guests had to bring gifts. I can also see where Neruda drew his inspiration for the poems he wrote and the meaning he found in everything. His home is located on the top of a hill overlooking a rocky beach with large waves. he had been a captain at one point, so he loved the sea and it inspired him. He collected figureheads from different ships and kept them all in one of his living rooms. There is one in particular, which he said was his favorite, that would "cry" whenever the fireplace was one. Because condensation would build up behind the eyes of the figurehead, water would roll down its cheeks and Pablo Neruda said that it was crying.
Finally, when our tour was over, we hopped back on the bus and headed to lunch at a seafood restaurant and after lunch, we headed back to Vina Del Mar for some more free time. 
The tour itself was also fantastic. Everything in Pablo Neruda's life was symbolic for something, or reminded him of something he loved. For example, he always wrote with green ink to remind him of the forests of the South of Chile where he grew up. There are a lot of things about his house and him that are a bit strange but interesting all the same. There was one room that contained a large life-size horse made of paper mache that Neruda had purchased after 45 years of bargaining. He didn't have a room in his house to fit it when he finally got it, so he built a new room and had a welcoming party for the horse to which which guests had to bring gifts. I can also see where Neruda drew his inspiration for the poems he wrote and the meaning he found in everything. His home is located on the top of a hill overlooking a rocky beach with large waves. he had been a captain at one point, so he loved the sea and it inspired him. He collected figureheads from different ships and kept them all in one of his living rooms. There is one in particular, which he said was his favorite, that would "cry" whenever the fireplace was one. Because condensation would build up behind the eyes of the figurehead, water would roll down its cheeks and Pablo Neruda said that it was crying.
Finally, when our tour was over, we hopped back on the bus and headed to lunch at a seafood restaurant and after lunch, we headed back to Vina Del Mar for some more free time.
Monday, May 12
We had the first company visit of the week today with a visit to the smelting division of Codelco. Originally, we were supposed to go to the copper company in the Andes but last week, the workers there were on strike. The strike is over now, but because it has just ended, the company is still is disarray and couldn't prepare anything for us in time. The back-up plan was the smelting plant and so there we went.
The presentation at Codelco was in Spanish with translations by Jo and some of the Chilean students. It was kind of difficult to follow but after the presentation, we got to drive through the plant and see where the company melts the metal down, where the smelting happens, and we also got to see the copper sheets ready for use. My favorite part of the tour was when we got to see the fires that were burning the metals down. After the tour, we went to yet another empanada place for lunch - an empanada place that was proclaimed to be the very best by some of the Chilean students. I thought it was good but I am starting to get really sick of empanadas and I can't really think of any empanada as being "the best."
When we got back to the hotel, we had some more free time so Jess, Ben, Sydney, and I went to downtown Vina to try to find a CD of Reggaeton or authentic Chilean music. We found a CD store but never did find a CD that we liked. They were also fairly expensive and none of us felt like paying that much. We did however find another artisan tent and walked around there forsome time. After getting back to the hotel, a group of us walked down to the beach to get ice cream and watch the sunset and then later on, we went to dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant where we got tacos and margaritas.
The presentation at Codelco was in Spanish with translations by Jo and some of the Chilean students. It was kind of difficult to follow but after the presentation, we got to drive through the plant and see where the company melts the metal down, where the smelting happens, and we also got to see the copper sheets ready for use. My favorite part of the tour was when we got to see the fires that were burning the metals down. After the tour, we went to yet another empanada place for lunch - an empanada place that was proclaimed to be the very best by some of the Chilean students. I thought it was good but I am starting to get really sick of empanadas and I can't really think of any empanada as being "the best."
When we got back to the hotel, we had some more free time so Jess, Ben, Sydney, and I went to downtown Vina to try to find a CD of Reggaeton or authentic Chilean music. We found a CD store but never did find a CD that we liked. They were also fairly expensive and none of us felt like paying that much. We did however find another artisan tent and walked around there forsome time. After getting back to the hotel, a group of us walked down to the beach to get ice cream and watch the sunset and then later on, we went to dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant where we got tacos and margaritas.
Sunday, May 11
Today was our first free day of the trip and I wanted to make sure that I got to do as many things as possible, so a couple of us woke up early to start the day. First, we headed off to a coffee shop down the street to get some caffeine and had some really good specialty coffees. The shop was kind of like the Chilean Starbucks but it was probably a little bit more fancy and had a wider selection of drinks. After finishing our coffees, we headed over to the mall and on the way, we found another artisan tent, at which we, of course, had to stop. I was excited because I was finally in a really good shopping mood and was able to find a lapis lazuli necklace, copper earrings, and some caramel. It has been amazing to me the number of artisan shopping areas there are here. We stopped at one in Santiago and one at the top of the incline in Valparaiso, there are artisan tents all along the boardwalk, and here was yet another. They all sell pretty much the same stuff but it is really interesting to me that there are so many people here that spend day after day selling their crafts. After finishing up at the tent, Jess and I decided to go back to the boardwalk to do more shopping there while the rest of the group went on to the mall. I didn't find anything to buy at the boardwalk and so after some browsing, we went back to meet the rest of the group.
After finishing all our shopping, we decided to spend the rest of the day sightseeing in Valparaiso. I'm not quite sure all that we saw while there, but it seemed like we walked the entire length of the city. We even decided to take the funicular back up to the top where we were on Tuesday. For me, it was fun because I have ridden the incline Pittsburgh and I have also been on the funicular in Quebec. Now, I can add to my list the funicular in Valparaiso, Chile. After the bus ride back from the city, we tried to find ice cream but because it is Sunday, all the stores closed early and we couldn't find any. However, I can say that I definitely did get a fell-day's worth of stuff done today.
After finishing all our shopping, we decided to spend the rest of the day sightseeing in Valparaiso. I'm not quite sure all that we saw while there, but it seemed like we walked the entire length of the city. We even decided to take the funicular back up to the top where we were on Tuesday. For me, it was fun because I have ridden the incline Pittsburgh and I have also been on the funicular in Quebec. Now, I can add to my list the funicular in Valparaiso, Chile. After the bus ride back from the city, we tried to find ice cream but because it is Sunday, all the stores closed early and we couldn't find any. However, I can say that I definitely did get a fell-day's worth of stuff done today.
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