DePaul University Study Abroad Trip to South Africa is Part of Trend

Twenty-two DePaul students interested in studying business in South Africa learned more about the subject than books and lectures alone could offer when they spent 11 days during winter break visiting a variety of firms in Cape Town and Johannesburg. The trip was the first to South Africa sponsored by DePaul’s Driehaus Center for International Business and is part of a national trend of American students choosing nontraditional places to study abroad.

“As business globalizes, students are recognizing the importance of studying emerging markets such as South Africa, China, India and Malaysia,” said Ashok Batavia, a DePaul economics professor who led the study seminar to South Africa. “European markets are very similar to United States models, and the cultures are similar as well. Students are more interested in learning about something totally new. Emerging markets are very different in the way they do business.”

The number of American students studying in South Africa jumped 32 percent to 1,456 during 2001-2002, according to “Open Doors 2003,” the annual report on international education issued in November by the New York-based Institute of International Education (IIE), which gathers the most recent national statistics available. Other unconventional destinations in Africa, Asia and Latin America also saw large increases in American students hosted, including: Japan (3,168, up 21 percent), Cuba (1,279, up 41 percent), Brazil (1,064, up 40 percent), Thailand (836, up 69 percent), Korea (631, up 21 percent), Peru (522, up 47 percent), Singapore (231, up 97 percent), Senegal (211, up 51 percent) and El Salvador (145, up 86 percent). Business and management was the second most popular subject for American study abroad students, next to social science, according to the report.

Batavia prepared students for DePaul’s South Africa study seminar through lectures on the country’s politics, economy, culture and history before the group left Nov. 28. In South Africa, students had an opportunity to see these lessons come alive when they asked questions of executives and observed operations at a wide-range of businesses, including a mining company, a brewery, a winery, a flour milling company, a fruit exporter, an Internet provider and the headquarters of the country’s second largest bank. “South Africa is one of the world’s emerging market economies and the most advanced economy in Africa,” Batavia said. “Its economic infrastructure has great potential and students can learn a lot by being exposed to business practices in that part of the world.”

Seminar participant Tom Farr, a part-time MBA student who works in the global cash management division of ABN AMRO Bank in Chicago, called the study abroad seminar “highly educational and the best experience of my life.”

“It gave us the sights, sounds and smells that will make the experience hard to forget,” he said. “It provided us with the detail and experience you can only get from being immersed.” Farr said he now has a better appreciation of the risks and opportunities that exist in emerging markets and the careful decision-making required of executives leading companies that are entering these markets.

Study abroad experiences often transform the perceptions of students, Batavia said. “For example, from the media and books, students perceived Soweto as totally rundown and highly violent. They were surprised to see for themselves that, yes, there are areas that are very poor, but the rest is an up-and-coming township. They also thought that everything in South Africa was like everything else in Africa. This trip gave them a chance to look at South Africa’s infrastructure and educational resources and see that things can be very different from country to country.”

The Driehaus Center plans to offer another student seminar to South Africa this summer. Future business study abroad opportunities are planned for Japan, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, China, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Malaysia and Vietnam.