By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
Baylor’s McBride Center for International Business is offering a variety of study abroad opportunities this summer for students in the business school. The application deadline is March 1.
Dr. Christina Iluzada, assistant director of the McBride Center for International Business, said the center aims to help students have global experiences.
“Our goal is, in the next 10 years, to be able to say, ‘Every business student who comes to Baylor has some kind of global engagement experience — whether that is studying abroad, or having an international internship, or doing their business admission program or having a coil class, which is a collaborative online international learning class,” Iluzada said.
Iluzada said the center is offering many opportunities for students to study abroad in summer.
“There’s Scandinavia, which is Sweden and Denmark. There is Sydney, which is, of course, Australia — and then Iceland and Asia, which is South Korea and Japan,” Iluzada said. “These are all [during] summer [for] two to four weeks.”
Iluzada said some of these study abroad opportunities have unique aspects that are not part of other programs, such as internships.
“For Scandinavia, something that’s kind of cool is that students can add on an internship if they want to stay in July, so this program is in June, but they can add on an internship in July,” Iluzada said. “All three of these programs have students visit businesses, so students can learn about international business experientially. So what is business like in Japan? What is business like in South Korea?”
Iluzada said an important aspect of going abroad is getting to learn about business in a new environment and culture.
“[Students will] most certainly be working with people that are from different cultures — whether that’s people on your supply chain … making your products, or whether you’re going to have branches in different locations internationally,” Iluzada said. “So you’re going to market your products to different audiences, and you want to have, you know, international markets.”
To make going abroad possible for students, Iluzada said the department offers some scholarships.
“They are all, at this point, need-based,” Iluzada said. “So a student has to have a FAFSA and demonstrate need through their FAFSA, and the FAFSA needs to be on on file at Baylor. And then we can look at their FAFSA and determine if they have a need, and we have certain donor funds that have set need-based scholarships for study abroad. So unfortunately, we don’t have any merit scholarships at this point.”
Milwaukee, Wis., junior Diana Yurk said she went on a business study abroad trip with her friend to Morocco; Florence, Italy; and Barcelona, Spain.
“At each [place], we toured different businesses in the area and got to meet with entrepreneurs and look at start-ups in the area, overall an amazing experience,” Yurk said. “We got to meet with a lot of entrepreneurs that were our age, and it was just interesting to see the differences.”
Yurk said she would recommend going on a business study abroad program to other students because of the skills and experiences it offers.
“You see a different perspective of life that you wouldn’t have seen in Waco, Texas,” Yurk said. “Also, it’s good to notice that there’s not one way of doing business, or there’s not one way to run a business. It differs from country to country, from person to person.”
Iluzada said she believes studying abroad through the McBride Center for International Business is a way for students to immerse themselves in the global marketplace.
“I just think it’s so important for students to be willing to serve the global marketplace,” Iluzada said. “It’s part of the Hankamer mission, and to serve the global marketplace, we want students to have some level [of] experience when they graduate.”
