1. My international experience to date is:
My international experience to date does not include anything outside of the Caribbean islands. I have traveled to Bermuda, St. Maartin’s, and St. John’s, however I have never traveled anywhere else outside the United States besides those islands. I am looking forward to my first international experience in China for the Plus 3 Program.
2. I want to go to China because:
I want to go to China because I feel as though it will be very beneficial to my aspirations of pursuing a future career in international business. This trip will give me a good idea of what business in foreign countries will be like, as well as what to expect in terms of cultural differences in both the professional work field and social norms. I feel as though visiting another country will give me a new perspective on the way things work around the world, and visiting China will give me a new appreciation for another culture different from mine.
3. I think the main professional work differences I will experience will be:
I think the main professional work differences I will encounter in China are the higher levels of international presence, and not just from people in China. With China being a powerhouse for international business, I feel as though I will encounter people from many different countries working for the same international company. Also, being a business major, I believe that I will encounter differences in records policies in terms of how China, being a different country, file their paperwork and record their business transactions. Although attempts to standardize accounting and financial information globally for international business purposes have begun, this has still not been completed, and it will be interesting to compare the United States’ methods versus China’s methods.
4. I think the main cultural differences I will experience will be:
I think the main cultural differences I will experience are the differences in the focus of life between the United States and China. From my understanding, people in China are known for having a very high and very respected level of trust from a very early stage in a relationship. Unfortunately, here in the United States, trust is sometimes something that is very difficult to build among people and relationships in general. I feel as though this will be the biggest culture shock I will receive, their trusting attitude from the very beginning.
5. I think the main political differences I will experience will be:
I think that there are a couple main professional differences I will experience while I am in China. For one, I expect the trust that I talked about in the previous section to carry over into the business community. Also, in the United States, power in the business community is delegated through a chain of command, with a distinctive line to the top, with each level having independent authority over certain aspects, answering to a higher level. From my experience in learning about their culture, China seems to have a more group oriented authority system, where, although the “boss” does have the final say, decisions are talked and discussed as a group to come up with the best solutions, more-so than they are in the US.
6. I think the students in China will be:
From my understanding, students who attend schools in China take their education very seriously and put a lot of hard work and dedication into their schooling. In this respect, I am expecting these students to be a lot like me, and I am expecting them to be very competitive when it comes to schooling and their grades.
7. I predict I will be surprised to find:
I predict I will be surprised to find the sheer volume of people occupying any given area during the day. From a numbers perspective, I understand the massive amounts of people that live in China, however I do not believe that I, without experiencing it, am able to fathom the volume of foot traffic that Beijing experiences on a daily basis.
8. I think the major differences in living conditions will be:
I think that there will be major differences in the living conditions between here and China, not so much in the college life, because it seems as though college dorms and living facilities are pretty standard, small rooms throughout all colleges around the world, the only differences are the amenities provided, and being a developed country, I do not expect China to have any poorer living conditions. In terms of the overall living conditions, because of the massive amounts of people, I feel as though the city will be much more crowded than we are seeing. New York is the most crowded city I have ever been to, and Beijing has more than 5 times the density of people per square kilometer, which leads me to believe the living conditions will be much smaller and much more crowded than here in the United States.
(optional)9. Anything else you want to say:
I am very excited for my first international experience to be a study abroad trip to such an important country such as China. I am not only excited to engage in academic company visits and historical sightseeing, but I am also excited to immerse myself in the culture of China, and although I do anticipate a culture shock, I am ready to enter into this trip with an open mind, hoping to come out of it with a vast appreciation for not only the international business aspect of the trip, but also for the peoples and traditions of China.