Final Summary Journal Entry

Ethical Issues in My Profession
In the companies that we visited and were given an opportunity to observe, I did not see much differences in their ways of dealing with safety, environmental, or employee issues. I am sure the Vietnamese government has some way of regulating these things, as well. Most of the professionals we talked with have ties to America, and so they seem to have dealt with diversity issues the same in Vietnam as they would here in the United States. Since many of the Vietnamese own their own businesses, they are able to run them and treat their employees in a way that they feel is fair. The female students I met while studying at the University of Economics and Finance were all very determined to make it in the working world, so I believe that gender roles or expectations in Vietnam may be fading with the younger generations, specifically. I believe we are also finding this in the United States.

Educational Breadth as Professional Development
A broad education is definitely necessary and important in understanding the need of engineering and business solutions in a global and societal context. I think there were plenty of differences between the Vietnamese culture and that of which we have in the United States. In fact, there are enough that would make me encourage other students to study these differences. Personally, I knew some cultural differences before we traveled to Vietnam, but only those I thought we would encounter in a business setting. It has definitely made me realize that I should do more research about the culture of a place before I go there, and I would encourage other students studying abroad to do the same, no matter how long or short their trip is. I also wish I had known more about the economy of Vietnam and their position in the global market before going on our trip. Yes, it was beneficial to learn about it at UEF or during a site visit, but I think that I would have looked at the country in a different light had I known more before arriving in Ho Chi Minh City. I think courses like international economics or introduction to developmental economics would help prepare me for a global economy, even after experiencing it firsthand.

Lifelong Learning, Continuous Education as Professional Development
It is clear that all the professionals we met have benefited in some way from life-long learning. Specifically, those who were not Vietnamese have had to adjust many different aspects of their lives in order to find success as a foreigner in Vietnam. They were all educated in a field relating to their current profession; however they have all learned to adapt what they learned to the way things are done in Vietnam. One even went so far as to say that all he had learned in business school was done the opposite way in Vietnam. As for technology, it played an important role in all the businesses we visited throughout the trip. It is used not only for the basic purposes of the companies, but even for communicating with employees and clients. Clearly, everyone is affected by technology, and so everyone must be open to learning and using it as an important part of the companies they work for or have started. Technology is just one thing that people have to continue to learn in order to be successful in the business world. I think that the professionals we met while in Vietnam have all had to adjust to and learn about their surroundings in order to achieve the success they have found.

The Social Environment of Professional Life
I definitely saw a connection between peoples’ social and professional lives. Much of this I believe had to do with the fact that many of the companies had younger employees. For example, at Glass Egg Digital Media or Ascenx, most of the staff in the offices were fresh out of college or art school. I did not really discuss any of America’s social or political issues, and did not feel comfortable or educated enough to ask much about Vietnam’s social and political issues. However, I think that each company did a thorough job at explaining the politics involved in their businesses. For example, Phu My Hung Corporation is funded by the government, yet their engineers and architects seem to have been given free reign over the design of South Saigon, contrary to what I think would have been the case. Because I did not really know many of the current events or issues going on in Vietnam while I was there, I have achieved the understanding of why it is important to have knowledge of contemporary issues related to the global economy before traveling in a business capacity. Upon learning about some issues in Vietnam from those we met on site visits, some of the things I noticed around the country and in Ho Chi Minh City began to make sense. For example, I wondered for about the first week of our trip why there were so many stores selling safes. Then when I learned that most Vietnamese do not have bank accounts and therefore keep their money in US Dollars or gold, this made sense.

Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams
Before and during our trip, I think that I handled being a member of a multi-disciplinary team fairly well. Working with engineering students made me realize how different the educational experiences are between the College of Business Administration and the School of Engineering. In CBA, a lot of focus is put on working with teams, and some of our most important and challenging classes have group projects as a big component of the final grade. For this reason, especially being a year ahead of my fellow Plus 3 students, I felt prepared to work effectively as a team on our pre-departure report and throughout the trip. Despite the fact that our first meeting was not very productive and we were unprepared to produce our project, the next time we met everyone had done their part and had also done a very thorough job. I was impressed by the slides the engineering students put together, and even more impressed at how well they understood and were able to explain engineering concepts in our presentation. It goes to show how much they are learning, and I think that our industry analysis was also very thorough and showed the knowledge we are beginning to accumulate in CBA. Sometimes, communication was an issue, but we eventually overcame it by appointing a ‘team leader’ of sorts, who made sure we were always on the same page.

At last...

I have made it home safely. The flights home were much better than the ones there, mostly because I was actually able to sleep. I am very glad to be home, but I will miss Vietnam. I would love to go back to see more of Ho Chi Minh City, and Hanoi as well. It was an amazing place and experience.

I guess this is the end of my blogging. Thanks for reading :)

Home tomorrow!!

For our last day, we had one last business and language class. We also had a really great lunch at UEF that included french fries and these delicious fried spring rolls (possibly my new favorite food). We have a farewell dinner at the Indochine Restaurant tonight with a bunch of people we've had the opportunity to spend time with, like our Vietnamese teacher and one of the CEO's we met on a site visit. I think it's going to be a really nice time. Afterwards, I don't plan on going to sleep. Our bus leaves at 3:30 AM (!!!) for the airport to come home, anyway. In the meantime, I really need to pack. It's going to be tough since I'm coming home with more than I arrived here with. Hopefully it all fits!

Here is my itinerary:
- depart Saigon Airport @ 6:05AM, arrive Hong Kong Int'l @ 9:40AM
- depart Hong Kong Int'l @ 12:45PM, arrive Chicago O'Hare @ 2:16PM
- depart Chicago O'Hare @ 4:16PM, arrive Philadelphia Int'l @ 9:19PM

So the trip is coming to a close, and although I'm not looking forward to my 38-hour-long Saturday (yes, somehow that's what it will be with all the time changes), I will be happy to get home. I think the trip has been the perfect length of time, and that I have really gotten a lot out of it, possibly even more than I had initially hoped.

Day 11

Today has been a great day. This morning, we didn't have classes, but instead went to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange. It was in an old French government building, and it now has this statue of a bull and a bear in front of it which for some reason I thought was really awesome.
The stock exchange itself was a little different from what I expected it to be like. The trading floor was small and all automated by computer, no crazy people running around and shouting.
After the Stock Exchange, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which is only a block away from our hotel. To give you an idea of the kind of things in this museum, it actually used to be called the 'War Crimes' museum, and before that, it was the 'American War Crimes' museum. Outside were a lot of pieces of military equipment left behind by the Army (a fighter plane, helicopter, tanks, etc.), which were all really cool to get up close to and look at. The inside, however, is where it got really interesting. Around the city, there are lots of signs of propaganda, which is all really interesting to look at (pictures of Vietnamese soldiers helping farmers, pictures of Ho Chi Minh with a HUGE smile on his face...stuff like that). The War Remnants museum, however, was filled with pictures and objects whose captions blew my mind. I can't remember anything specific, but I got a few pictures of the posters that were up there. Some of it was also really disturbing and kind of upsetting, but it was history, and it is completely representative of what Vietnamese students are taught in schools.
This afternoon, we spent the day shopping in the markets. We first went to the Binh Tay Market, which is what the Vietnamese call their 'Chinatown.' It was more like a warehouse, and there was hardly anything touristy. We found a few things, and then got lunch at a Chinese restaurant, where we unknowingly ordered chicken feet. We didn't realize that we were eating chicken's feet until I had two, so that kind of ruined my appetite. No wonder there was hardly any meat on them and the bones were really brittle... But then we went to the Ben Thanh Market, which is more oriented towards Americans. I finished all my shopping there, which is great since our time is almost up here in Vietnam!

Day 10!

Today was more relaxed, which is nice since we've been so busy lately. We had a history/culture class and then our language class. Today there were a lot of news cameras and reporters at the school to do their stories on us. I was in a few pictures for the newspaper, so hopefully I will get my hands on a copy of that somehow. After classes and lunch, we stuck around UEF and hung out with the English Club for a few hours. They had us playing games and talking to each other about the differences between our schools. It was a lot of fun. The students are probably one of my favorite parts about this trip. They are all so interested in talking to us and are very friendly. The games were a little embarassing, but my partner and I won one, so that was fun. Later, we played a soccer game against the UEF team. I haven't played soccer for a long time, but it was still a lot of fun. Their team was really good, but I think it was a pretty even matchup.

Day 9

Today was a lot like yesterday. We had a business class this morning and language class again. Then, we had a site visit to the US Commercial Service. We met with the Principal Commercial Officer (he's kind of a big deal). The US Commercial Service is a part of the International Trade Association, which is a division of the Department of Commerce. The main goal is to promote the export of US goods or services to Vietnam. He is one of about 270 Principal Commercial Officers in the world, so it was great that we were given the opportunity to hear him speak. He, like many of our other site visits, gave us his opinion on the state of the economy in Vietnam in light of the global downturn, which of course is very interesting. We just went to dinner at a place called the Hollywood Film Cafe, which is a restaurant that was opened by a Chinese American. His story is really interesting. He was born in Kansas, grew up in North Carolina, just graduated in 2006, moved to Vietnam, opened a franchise, had a few mishaps with the government (real easy to do in Vietnam), and then started this new restaurant. The restaurant was really neat, it was like a movie theatre and I got a bacon cheeseburger that was AMAZING. I didn't realize how much I miss American food. It makes me really excited to come home in a few days! :)

Day 8

Today was one of our less exciting days. We had a Vietnamese history class this morning which I had a hard time staying awake in, and then we had our language class, in which we learned numbers.
Our site visit for the day was with CB Richard Ellis. The woman who spoke with us was from Wisconsin originally, and first came to Vietnam during her undergrad. After graduating she decided to come here to work full time. I thought her story was really interesting. She talked a lot about the 'palefaces' and 'expats' in Vietnam who are working here and how most of them are kind of forced to come here by their company so they are paid ridiculous amounts of money and get to stay in these incredible apartments in the nicest parts of town. I thought it was awesome that she chose to come to work in Vietnam, and she was really excited to tell us some secrets of the city, like a restaurant where you can eat scorpions. CBRE is a real estate firm, so she was also able to explain to us how the housing crisis in Vietnam was spurred by the credit crisis around the world, but not for the reasons we would expect. The Vietnamese actually mostly don't have bank accounts. Mostly, they keep their money in blocks of gold or straps of bills hid in their houses somewhere. So when they go to buy a house or an apartment, they walk into her shows with plastic bags full of cash. The reason housing prices skyrocketed in Vietnam is becasue the people saw what was going on around the world and were afraid that the properties they bought (or actually lease from the government) would depreciate in value like properties did in America, for example. It was an interesting perspective, and I think that she was able to explain what was going on economically in Vietnam really well.
For dinner we found this great place called Thai Express. I had honey chicken, which was so good! It was a cool restaurant, too, so I'm not sure why we were the only ones eating there, but we were. Regardless, it was one of the best dinners out I have had so far.