By Clare Shreve
Seven students were in Vietnam over spring break with the sole purpose of experiencing international business firsthand.
Through the Entrepreneurial Scholars program, many students are given the opportunity to develop an idea for a business and to try and make it an actuality.
The trip to Vietnam is not the first of its kind, but the individuals who partake experience a brand- new language, culture and way of conducting business.
The E-Scholars trip is designed to be a nine-day business trip for students to take their ideas abroad and see how business is conducted in another country and to build upon those experiences to strengthen their proposals. Robin Anderson, dean of the school of business, said that his personal goal is for "every student to feel confident that they can go anywhere in the world and transact business."
Despite the school of business playing such a large role in the creation of this program, students from all disciplines participate.
"Entrepreneurs can come from anywhere," Anderson said. About 40 percent of the students who participate are business majors, with the other 60 percent coming from disciplines ranging from biology, engineering and Spanish.
Liana Louie, junior nursing major, was able to take her product to the next step through the program. Meeting with some of the top shoe manufactures in Vietnam, Louie pitched her idea for a new line of women's shoes that cater to a wider foot.
After five years of working in a Macy's shoe department, Louie discovered an untapped market: obese and overweight women who require a different kind of fit that doesn't sacrifice style or comfort. Louie said she "saw a need and used it as an opportunity."
After several unsolicited phone calls to Vietnamese businesses, she set up a meeting with the largest shoe manufacturer in Vietnam, T.T. Shoes, which is located in Ho Chi Minh City.
It was Louie's meeting with the CEO of T.T. Shoes that solidified her plans of creating this specialized line of shoes. In this company, she found an affordable, trustworthy manufacturer for the shoes.
Louie said in the United States it would have been more difficult to get a meeting with a CEO of a major corporation. It was more likely that someone much lower on the business hierarchy would have met with her had she looked strictly into American manufacturers. The availability of the higher-ups in Vietnam was encouraging to her.
"The economic recession works in my favor because I was able to get a good deal," Louie said.
The cost of production is also much lower in Vietnam than in the States, making it a prime place for business ventures in their infancy to begin.
"Most (students) aren't in a position to start their own business, but it's a chance to meet with people who do manufacturing and connect with production resources," said John Orr, English professor, who went on the trip.
All of the students made their own appointments with Vietnamese businesses prior to their departure in order to make those valuable business connections.
Besides making the appointments, students had to get to and from them via public transit, which for Louie was more than a challenge.
After hailing a seemingly legitimate taxi to take her back to the hotel, Louie found herself being dropped off on an eight-lane expressway. However, when she found herself locked in the cab against her will, she realized that it was a counterfeit cab. She was locked in the cab for 15 minutes.
Once she shimmied the window open, she yelled for help. This brought unwanted attention to the cabby, causing him to drive her the remaining distance to the hotel where she dealt with the Vietnam Police.
Most students did not have such traumatic experiences, but the language barrier remained a challenge for them - in the business world and in everyday living. Students were equipped with simple Vietnamese phrases before for their departure. With the bigger corporations there were translators. For the smaller businesses, many times only hand gestures were there to help.
"You learn how to communicate without the use of words," said Kevin Loomis, senior E-scholar. Loomis took a modified -eating tour of Vietnam to help him develop an idea of how some restaurants function and what they serve.
He sampled variations of a popular Vietnamese soup called pho. He walked through markets filled with various street vendors and ate at "dust cafés," which consist of barely off-the-ground tables on the side of the road.
Before he left for Vietnam he learned to say the names of several animals that would help him discern what he was eating. In the end he found that hand gestures, "please" and "thank you" went a long way in terms of communicating.
Loomis said he also noticed a number of students speaking to Vietnamese children who had some knowledge of English to gather their bearings in the city.
Other E-scholars destinations include China, where a group of students went over spring break, and Russia, where students will visit in May.
Each country, including Vietnam, offers vastly different business environments. The program picked Vietnam for its challenges, not only linguistically but also culturally and politically. Vietnam is still a communist nation and despite unrest over the Vietnam War on both sides over the past several decades, the bridges are being rebuilt through the world of international commerce.
"People learn the most when they get out of their comfort zones," Anderson said.
For American students attending a Catholic university, Vietnam is a prime candidate to push the boundaries of their comfort zones.
Over the course of the nine days, students were forced to ask themselves how the reality of this experience matches up with what they were expecting.
For Loomis, although many of the business connections he made were not lifelong partnerships, he still saw how important those types of relationships can be. Business relationships are particularly important because of the governmental infrastructure of the country.
"The government system is intricate," Loomis said. "I realized the power of networking and how important those relationships are."
For Louie, the trip offered perspective. It showed whether or not her business proposal was feasible. In her case, it was. Louie is expecting prototypes in the mail within a few weeks.
"Not every participant starts a business," Orr said. "But they learn how to be entrepreneurial."
The trip not only proves to be worthwhile for those who come away with certifiable business proposals, but also for those who gained a sense of self in the process.
After a trip like this, Anderson and Orr see a change in the self - confidence level of each student. These students are now better equipped to deal with the international world of business.
