It is really hard to believe how our time in Santiago has flown by. Today was our last day of scheduled visits here. Tomorrow we're taking a day trip to Valparaíso on the coast and then Saturday we will have some free time for sightseeing back in Santiago before heading to the airport.
Today we spent the morning and part of the afternoon at the Universidad de Chile, a public university founded in 1842 that is one of the top-ranked schools in the country. Nineteen Chilean presidents, along with the Nobel prize-winning authors Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, attended the Universidad de Chile. Specifically, we visited their business school, the Facultad de Economía y Negocios (FEN). We started with a tour led by Meredith Denton, Head of International Programs, during which we saw various facilities, such as the library and sports fields. During our visit we learned that all of the campuses of Universidad de Chile combined have approximately 25,000 undergraduate students and 5,000 graduate students, while FEN has 2000 undergraduates and 500 graduate students.
We were welcomed by Professor Erich Spencer, Director of International Affairs, who had arranged an activity for our students to work on with his students from an international business class. The students were divided into groups, each with a mix of our students and Chilean students, and they were given questions about international business and emerging markets to work on. The groups left the classroom and spread out around the building to work on their activity and get to know each other. Michael stayed to facilitate the activity with Meredith, while the rest of the trip facilitators met with Professor Spencer, Professor Javier Núñez, the program Director, and Dr. Manuel Agosin, Dean of FEN, to discuss further developing partnerships between FEN and Kelley.
In addition to working on their international business activity, the student groups discussed a wide variety of topics. Some of the Chilean students were interested in how much it costs to attend a university in the U.S. Our students wanted to hear about their personal experiences with the 2010 earthquake. While the Chilean students seemed proud of their country, some were surprised that business students would choose to take a trip to Chile and didn't seem aware of how positive the reputation of Chile's economic climate and potential for growth has become. Another topic that the students discussed was the job search process. From what Katelyn learned from her group, the internship and job search processes and the support they receive from their school is similar to the experience of Kelley students. She learned that Deloitte is one of the companies that recruits at FEN, which was particularly interesting to her because after graduation she'll be working for Deloitte in Chicago in human capital consulting. By the way, ¡feliz cumpleaños, Katelyn!
Overall, our students found spending time with the Chilean students to be a very enjoyable experience and a valuable learning opportunity. Several said that the allotted discussion time went by quickly and they wish they had more time to spend with the FEN students. Kyle expressed that he learned a lot about Chilean culture that was not covered in our business visits through talking to Chileans around his age for just a short time. Jennifer felt that it was a very positive experience and the FEN students seemed excited to meet Americans. She even said she enjoyed the environment so much that she felt like she could go back every day! She also explained that our students have been in an audience role throughout the week, so it was nice to have an opportunity to share information about their culture and their studies with Chileans during this visit. She found the more balanced ratio of Chileans to Americans, in comparison to our other visits, to be helpful for learning and cultural exchange. Andrew pointed out that the fact that he and some of the other Kelley students speak Spanish helped them to facilitate the discussion and to bond more with the Chilean students. Megan felt that having to work together on an activity really brought the students together. She said that at the beginning of the session everyone seemed somewhat uncomfortable and our students and the FEN students were hesitant to intermingle, but after the discussion activity, they were much more comfortable with each other.
After lunch and a small group reflection session, we visited Enersis, a private utility company serving Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Perú. Nicolás Donoso and María Teresa Fuentealba met with us and gave us an overview of the company. We learned that they work in both generation and distribution of electricity and that they aim to provide energy at competitive prices while being environmentally conscious. They specialize in hydroelectric power, so the weather and the environment are important factors for their business.
On the way home, a few of us decided to check out the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library), which is right across the street from our hotel. The architecture was very impressive and there were exhibits with some interesting books and other types of publications on display.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's updates from the Valparaíso trip. We're excited to get to see another part of Chile and we hope to have interesting stories and beautiful pictures of the coast to share.
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