KBS Study Abroad: Paris and Belgium                                    March 2012

By Hannah Mueller                     

My name is Hannah Mueller and I am a second year Operations Management major in the Kolodzik Business Scholars honors program within the Lindner College of Business. I recently had the fortune of partaking in the KBS study abroad trip to Paris and Belgium. This was a ten day experience which included visiting Paris, Brussels, Bruges, and Antwerp.

I would highly recommend this trip to anyone who is considering it because it is a great mix of educational and independent cultural experiences. Not only did we attend many business and governmental meetings, but we also were given time to plan our own experiences within the many cities on the trip.

Upon arriving in Paris we headed straight to the US Embassy where we learned about the Embassy’s functions in Paris and how they operate in terms of being the official presence in the country for the United States. After this meeting we were given a couple days to explore on our own. A group of my friends and I decided that we wanted to see many things that this wonderful city had to offer, so we did a “hop on, hop off” boat tour that cruised down The Seine.  This was a great concept in that we were able to see many monuments such as Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, The Louvre, the Champs Elysee and the Hotel de Ville within a matter of hours. We also decided that we wanted to experience the culinary culture of the country, so we mostly ate from culturally based small Parisian restaurants. Finally, we were able to visit the Unilever headquarters in Paris where they gave multiple presentations on their marketing strategies and their current situation as well as where they would like their company to be in the future.

Next, we moved on to Brussels, Belgium by high speed train. This was an interesting experience in and of itself because there is nothing quite like it in the United States. It only took us about an hour and a half to get from Paris to Brussels! Our time in Belgium was great because all of our scheduled visits were in the mornings/afternoons and we then had the rest of the day to explore on our own. The first thing we did in Belgium was visit UCL - Louvain la Neuve – a University in Belgium. We were able to meet with a class of students at the university and discuss their global program as well as exchange presentations on our universities as well as on doing business in Europe. The next day, we visited Manon Chocolate where we were able to enter into the kitchen and experience chocolate being handmade. We then headed to the EU Parliament where we were able to see the extremely large meeting room and were given a presentation on certain EU functions.

On Thursday, we went to Antwerp, Belgium for the day. Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world. Our group was very fortunate to be able to schedule a visit at Rosy Blue which is a premier diamond company. We were given a presentation (with lunch included) on their corporate social responsibility, as well as a tour of the facility including the area where they polish and cut the diamonds themselves. After the tour, we explored Antwerp and went shopping on a very long street which could be compared to the Magnificent Mile in Chicago.

Friday was our last day of the trip and it was spent in Bruges, Belgium. Bruges is a beautiful city with buildings on the water similar to a small Venice, Italy. While in Antwerp we took a tour of the De Halve Maan Brewery as well as went on a guided boat tour of the city. Both were very informational and fun.

This trip was beneficial to me in that I have studied French since I was a freshman in high school and am considering minoring in the language. This was the best way for me to practice my French. I was able to pick up on the way that the Parisians spoke and it gave me a much greater understanding of the language to be completely surrounded by it.

My experience on this trip also built up my confidence in traveling to new countries. I hadn’t had much experience in leaving the country before this and was slightly nervous of exploring a new country on my own. However, seeing how well we did in these countries makes me want to travel more and showed me that I am more than qualified to handle this kind of experience.

One of my favorite aspects of this trip was that it was pretty equally divided between scheduled time and free time. There were many educational experiences but there were also many times when we could explore the cities in the way that we wanted to which is also very important.

Another thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was just how much I enjoyed this small study abroad experience. I was always one to say I probably wouldn’t do a study abroad in college because I couldn’t bear to be away from home for that long and that I couldn’t afford it. My advice for students who are in a similar state of mind is to sign up for these trips that are for a shorter period of time. You still get a great educational and cultural experience without being out of the country for quite as long.

Overall, this was an extraordinary experience for me. I would tell anyone who is thinking about going on this trip to just go ahead and do it. You always hear the cliché phrase that there is no better way to learn about a culture than to go and experience it, but this couldn’t be more true. I learned so much about both the Parisian and Belgian cultures by being completely immersed in them and experiencing all that they had to offer.