Romania rocked!
Not only did I survive 10 days in Eastern Europe, but I cannot wait to return. Romania is a gorgeous country with mountains, open fields and very well kept cities. I traveled from Columbia, South Carolina with 10 USC students and one business professor, Dr. Lambdin sponsored by the Moore School of Business in July. The trip was long but by the time we arrived in Romania we were all pumped to begin our journey.
I was very fortunate to be selected to participate on this trip. Our group spent most of the spring semester working on the business classes and cultural classes we were going to teach to the camp of high school students. As part of the Global Business Immersion Camp we had to prepare lesson plans and think of creative ways to get the high school students to interact. I taught a business course along with my friend Jordan about business etiquette which included business attire, resumes, business cards, interviewing over a meal and handshaking. We taught the class 5 times alongside two Romanian university students as the purpose of this trip was to pass over the camp to the Romanian university students. The high schoolers loved the course and enjoyed the opportunities we gave them to practice shaking hands, identify appropriate and inappropriate clothing pictures and compare Romanian business dinners to those in the USA. It was extremely rewarding to also see our Romanian university students take over our class and really teach it themselves.
Along with my friend Rae we prepared a cultural lesson plan about basketball and games. We taught groups of students some popular games in the USA such as Horse, Around the World, Knock Out and 3 vs. 3. I must say Knock Out was probably the favorite. In the case of rain (which it did rain on the 2nd day of the camp) we played electronic Catch Phrase with the students. This was the perfect game because it forced the students to practice their English in a creative way. By the end of the camp the Romanian teachers wanted to purchase the game for the English classes and the students wanted one to play with their friends. Another big hit was the card game called Egyptian War.
It is important for me to share with you that Romanians absolutely love Americans, which as you may know is very difficult to find in Europe nowadays. The students hung on every word we said and constantly wanted to hear us speak and they wanted to learn as much as they could from us. It was interesting for me to find out that many of the students improved their English by watching Cartoon Network through their adolescence.
As part of the trip we traveled throughout Transylvania and visited places such as Bran (Dracula's) Castle, Peles Castle, the gorge (beautiful water and mountain area) and Romanian businesses. We went to a Christmas ornament factory, Farmec (cosmetics company) and took a drive on the new superhighway they are building. The Christmas ornament factory was so neat because we were able to see the workers hand blow glass balls as well as hand paint each ornament. They are actually currently filling an order for Pier 1 throughout the USA!
The women of City Hall were the ones who took care of our arrangements. They were absolutely incredible and even arranged for us to meet the Mayor in Cluj-Napoca. He was a very nice man and they say he will probably become the next Prime Minister of the country.
This is definitely a country I plan to return to in the future. My best recommendation for all of you is to look into opportunities to travel while at USC, whether it's study abroad, a faculty led trip or another type of fellowship or scholarship. There's tons more I would love to share about the trip! Feel free to post a comment or question.