Day 1 (5/4/08)
The flight to Chile was ridiculously long. I think I maybe got 20 minutes of sleep on a 9-hour flight. Even one student was detained for attempting “smuggle” carrots and trail mix into Chile. She was released with no fine or criminal offense. The view of the mountains from the airplane was a sweet sight, snow-capped mountains on one side of the airplane, and smaller, rockier mountains on the other side of the plane, as well as the ocean. The ride from the airport to Vina del Mar was very cool; I find the rocky terrain of Chile very interesting. After all of us marveled the beautiful terrain for about 20 minutes, the entire bus went silent because almost all of us passed out due to lack of sleep on the flight. After arriving at the hotel, we were assigned rooms and allowed a few hours to freshen up, and relax. Later in the day we attended the last soccer game of the season played by the Chile’s club team. As you know, soccer (futbol) is extremely popular in South America, and a huge fan base attended the game chanting songs and beating drums throughout the entire game cheering their team on. The Chilean club team won, apparently advancing themselves to the playoffs. Finally after the game, we found a small empanada stand for dinner, and headed back to the hotel to hang out for the rest of the night. I have to say one thing I did not expect about Chile and that is the cleanliness of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. It was kind of disappointing trying to look at the mountains, and out onto the ocean and having trouble seeing them because of the pollution and smog. Also the streets are not very clean, and there are frequent sightings of stray dogs. I did not expect Chile to be immaculately clean, but not as dirty as I saw it today.
Day 2 (5/5/08)
The whole group got up pretty early to take a public bus over the University for a whole day of lectures. The first lecture was not very interesting but I appreciated the review and pictures of Chile’s diverse geography. It’s a shame that we wont get to see the enormous Andes, other than on the plane, and the Atacama Desert of the North, and the glacier landscape of the south. Some of the cultural information that the professor presented to us was very interesting, but most of it was review from the seminars we had before we left for Chile. The second half of the day was business based and much more interesting, the professor presented us with a plethora of statistics about business for all of the South American companies. The professor was an industrial engineer so it was useful to hear him connect business with engineering in a variety of ways. Apparently he is going to show us the machine he has invented for improving the efficiency of packing grapes tomorrow in lecture, which should be pretty cool, considering that we aren’t taking any engineering classes. But overall the business lectures were much more interesting because he simply did not just read off of the power point slides, rather he came up with simple examples so we could understand some of the business concepts he was trying to explain. Also, the way he presented the business data was very useful because it was presented in a chart form showing all the Latin American countries so it was easy to compare and see which country exceled in what areas. Finally after all the lectures we had a salsa class late at night. It was much more fun than I thought it was going to be because I am not big into dancing, nor can I do it very well. But near the end we had to be rushed out of the university because a student protest had gotten out of hand and the Chilean police and swat team was called to the university, which apparently hasn’t happened in over 10 years. So it got pretty crazy in short amount of time, but the students did a very good job keeping us safe, and we were never in danger. I thank them for that. I would also like to comment that I was surprised at how nice the University of Santa Maria’s campus was, it had a very old school feel, almost like a castle, and it was very relaxing especially since it overlooked the Pacific Ocean on a huge hill, I definitely was not expecting that.
Day 3 (5/6/08)
As a result of the out of control protests last night they took us to a different campus of the University of Santa Maria to have lecture. Today, the same professor who lectured us on a business yesterday, had two more lectures with us today. The lectures were much less formal, in the sense of the material. He spent more time talking about the business that he does, and the machine he invented. It was extremely interesting to see the thought, time, and energy that he put into this machine that maximizes the efficiency the packing of grapes. It was a very unique idea, and it seems like it is going to be a successful product. He put all of his money into this project, which took over a year to complete, which I could never imagine doing. The only bad part of the lecture was when he went over business etiquette in Chile, because we spent several hours in one of our pre-departure seminars going over the do’s and don’ts of international business etiquette so it was a little repetitive. But overall it was very interesting to see the intertwining of business strategy and engineering techniques in order to make successful product that he can eventually try to make a living off of. The techniques and ideas that he used in his process were definitely familiar because I had seen some of these concepts in my engineering classes during my freshman year of college. It feels pretty good to know that what they are teaching us, even in our freshman year, is actually used in the real world, and isn’t just useless information in order to try and discourage us from doing engineering. His machine used a computer program in order to distinguish which set of grapes to pair with another, and he said he used MATLAB and C++ in order to write this program. We used MATLAB and C++ in our Engineering 12 class, and I very surprised to see that people do actually use it in the real world to make real programs for products, in order to make money. After lectures, we all loaded onto a bus, and we drove around Valparaiso and Vina del Mar seeing the sites, taking pictures, and walking around the city. Some of the sites on the coast were amazing; there were huge dunes, rocks, big waves, beaches, and other amazing sites. It was absolutely astounding. It was also interesting because we had a professor explaining us the sites and some of the history behind it. Finally, we after returned back to the hotel we headed to a barbeque, and reggae tone dance lessons, which was extremely fun. I have to say that reggae tone is much more challenging then salsa.
Day 4 (5/7/08)
Today we had our first company visit. First we went to the tomato paste factory called Conservas Centauro. It was a small, sort of run down factory, but it seemed to be a very successful business, pulling in about $12 million a year. It’s a family business; the current owner is 4th generation so his great grandfather started the company exactly 100 years ago. It was a short but interesting tour. The factory smelled amazing because they were making pizza and tomato sauce. It was interesting to hear and see how they make the tomato paste. I was also surprised to find that the company grows their own tomatoes, and other vegetables right there on sight. This is advantageous on a business perspective because they don’t have to pay another company for shipping and other costs in order to make their final product. Another business advantage that this company is taking advantage is they are starting to package their tomato sauce into bags instead of cans. Its much easier to package, and ship, but does not stay as fresh as tomato sauce in cans. Overall I was impressed with the success of this business and was very interested in the actual process of how they make tomato paste and other tomato based products. The second company we visited was the steel company called Gerdau Aza. At first I was very excited because they gave us these big yellow coats in order to protect us as we walked through the factory. But it was very disappointing when we sat down for the power point presentation that they prepared to give us, and told us that we would not be touring the actual production plant. To be honest, the presentation that he gave us was very dry and boring. It explained only business aspects of the company, which really do not interest me very much. I would have been much more happy if they covered the production of the different steel products because that would fancy my engineering interests. But one thing that the steel company is very concerned with is quality control, the man presenting spent a good amount of time explaining their documentations about quality control, and how the company goes about improving the quality of their products and work place. This also connects with engineering because they have a whole division of quality control and improvement, and industrial engineers work in that area in order to improve the company’s quality and efficiency. Also in between visits we went to a steak house for lunch called “Pure Carne”, it was delicious. I got a salad and a meat sandwich. Salads in Chile are much different then they are in the United States. They don’t give you dressing, you use lemon juice, and they are just an assortment of vegetables, not mixed together. I found that to be very interesting.
Day 5 (5/8/08)
Today we had two more company visits. First we visited LAN Airlines. We received a short presentation, from an engineer working in maintenance, on some of the planes they have in their fleet, and where LAN airlines fly to. They are a passenger and cargo plane company who fly to some parts of Europe, United States, Mexico, and most of the countries in Latin America. After the presentation, they took us to a maintenance hanger where they inspect their planes. It was comforting to know that they, and almost all other airlines bring their airplanes in for inspection after every 100 hours of fight time. But the hanger was absolutely enormous, they had two planes currently being inspected one was a Boeing 767 and the other a 737. They have a variety of different planes in their fleet including some Boeing planes, and Airbus as well. Currently they are buying new planes to replace some of their old ones. The new planes are made of all composite material, no aluminum which improves the performance and extends the life of the plane. After LAN Airlines, we went to Vina Indomita, which is a large vineyard and winery near Santiago. This is my favorite company visit so far. The actual winery was on up a hill in an extremely nice building, the view from the porch of the building was astounding. They took us through where they make the wine in the giant metal canisters. They also showed us the basement where they have the wine stored in French oak barrels in order to age. They allow the wine to age for 13 or 18 months and they sit in the bottles for another 6 months, which I thought was unbelievable because it’s such a long time. The winery also had many acres of grapes, and we were told that they produce about 12 million liters of wine per year. After touring the plant, they took us into their restaurant, which was extremely fancy, and allowed us to sample the three wines that they produce there. Overall it was very interesting visit, and plus I got a cheap bottle of wine out of it.
Day 6 (5/9/08)
We woke up early today in order to take the hour and a half bus ride to Santiago. Our first, and only company visit for today was at the Santiago Stock Market. Santiago is a very cool city, its enormous, but their stock market is not very big. First they showed us a video about the Santiago Stock Market. It explained the basics of how the stock market works here in Chile, and things that are unique to the Santiago Stock Market. I wish I was more familiar with business terms and how the stock market works because I really did not follow what any of the terms meant or how things worked, but overall it was a pretty informative presentation. Then an employee for the stock market gave us a power point presentation on the new technology that the Santiago Stock Market uses. It is in fact very high tech, because almost all of the stock transactions take place through the computer and the Internet. I was also surprised to find that no one actually trades stock on the floor, the large majority of the brokers just stay at their office and use the computers to complete all their transactions. Finally, the tour guide took us to actual floor and we saw the electronic boards where all the stocks and their price per stock are listed. They also have a computer for each broker, if he were to actually come to the floor so he can make stock transactions. They also showed us a picture of what the floor looked liked in years past, and it has changed drastically including how the stocks were traded, listed, and the amount of people present on the floor daily. After the stock market tour, we went to this excellent seafood restaurant/market. They brought out appetizer after appetizer and main course after main course and we just kept eating, it was delicious. After eating at the seafood restaurant we drove up to this mountain, where they had these gondola type things that took you to the top. The view from these gondolas was amazing. We also climbed to the top where there was a statue of the Virgin Mary, it had to be at least 20 feet tall. Finally we went to this small arts and crafts market place, where I bought small souvenirs for my family and close friends.
Day 7 (5/10/08)
Today was a much-needed day of no academic material. Instead of company visits and lectures, we went horseback riding. We started at this small farm, which to my surprise had enough horses for everyone to ride at the same time (32 horses). They led us across a small river, and into these great big sand dunes. The scenery was beautiful, but it was very hard to ride a horse and take pictures at the same time. We went up and down the dunes, which were very scary, as some of them were very steep, and made me feel like I was going to fall off of my horse. As we passed through the dunes we came upon a small flat area of vegetation, and one small hill until we hit the beach. We were allowed to let the horses gallop up and down the beach, which was very fun, but painful on the inner legs. It amazed me how competitive the horses are because once one would start to gallop other horses would start and try to run faster then the first. One of our class mates Ian, decided to gallop in the shallow parts of a small pond. This resulted in the horse tripping in the water and both of them falling head deep into the water. It was quite funny. After that situation was sorted out, and both were determined not to be injured, we proceeded to the area in which were going to eat lunch. When we arrived it was quite an ironic site. There were tables, and fancy silverware set up in the middle of the forest. However, they served us pork, sausage, steak, rice, and other side dishes and it was absolutely delicious. They also mixed us pisco sours (the national drink of Chile), and gave us red wine with our lunch, which was a nice treat. After about an hour and half of eating and relaxing, we hopped back on our horses and took the short ride back to the ranch to return the horses, and head back to the hotel.
Day 8 (5/11/08)
Our only truly “free” day was today, and much needed. All the running around, doing activities, lectures, and company visits has worn me out, so a day of just relaxing and doing nothing was definitely necessary. After a long and late night at the club my roommate and I both woke up around 1 o’clock, we freshened up and went with some other people from the group to a restaurant down the street for some lunch. After eating, and talking we walked along the ocean where they have a sort of board walk type thing. They had small shops where we browsed the items for sale, but most of the shops sell the same thing, so once you looked at one you had looked at them all. On our way back, some went to the internet café to call their parents, me and two of my friends went to go get some ice cream, which was very delicious. We also walked along the beach and just sat and stared out onto the Pacific Ocean, which was very pristine and relaxing. The weather was beautiful today as well as in general for the whole trip. Later in the day we went to the empanada stand for a quick dinner. Finally a few of us found the cheapest bar we could find, and all sat down, relaxed, had a few drinks and reminisced about the past couple days of the trip. From what I can tell this next week will be pretty fun, and bit slower, winding down to the day that we leave.
Day 9 (5/12/08)
Today we only had one company visit and the rest of the day was a free day. We visited the company that I am going to be writing my paper on. It was the copper company called Codelco. But the visit had to be changed because of a strike. Instead of going to the Andina division we went to a smelting and refinery plant in the Ventana division. Up until the visit I was very excited to go the copper plant because it had the most engineering aspects out of all the companies that we were going to visit. This visit turned out to be a complete waste of time, and no help for our paper. The presentation was in complete Spanish, so we had to have the students translate it for us. But since they were trying to describe the process by which they refine copper, the presentation contained lots of technical jargon so they had a lot of trouble translating it, therefore making it impossible to follow. And then to add more fuel to the fire, we couldn’t actually tour the factory because they didn’t have enough safety gear for all of us to walk through the factory, so we had to settle for seeing the Ventana campus from the bus. Overall I have been very disappointed with the company visits, and more so with this one to Codelco, but what can we do, it is out of our control. After the smelting plant, we stopped about half way home at a little strip of empanada restaurants where we all sat down and ate empanadas for lunch. Then when we came back almost everyone was wiped for some reason, so most of us took a nap for an hour or two. Later in the night a couple of us found a decent restaurant for dinner. One thing I have noticed about every restaurant is that all of them serve the same things, and have extremely similar pricing. Tonight I did not go out, drink or anything. Instead I just hung out in my room and in the lobby, and watched a movie before going to bed.
Day 10 (5/13/08)
Today ended up being a lot better than I thought it was going to be. At the sounds of going to Isla Negra to tour the famous poet, Pablo Neruda’s house I wanted to fall asleep right there on the spot. But it turned out to be pretty interesting. Some of the history behind the stuff was boring, as well as the tour was in Spanish so we had to have some one translate it for us on the run, which made it a kind of pain. Pablo Neruda’s house was very cool though, he definitely had an obsession with collecting things, as there was tons of stuff in his house included glasses, pipes, shells, and other things of that sort. His house was also right on the beach, so the view from the rooms of his home were amazing. In fact, it was said that Pablo had the house constructed so that there was a view of the ocean from every room in the home, which I thought was very neat. The tour took about an hour or hour and a half, and after that was done we drove about twenty minutes to a small restaurant. Apparently this place had huge portions, and last year they ordered way too much food, and ended up wasting a lot of it. So this year we ordered from the half portions part of the menu, which was more than enough food for one person. I was slightly disappointed because what I got was not very good, and from what I saw of other people’s food they were enjoying their meal. I got a steak with some sort of pepper sauce on it, with French fries, but the steak was not cooked very much, so it was very bloody which was not to my liking. But I ate most of it anyway because I was starving. Overall today was a fun day, because it was very low key, and relaxing. We also didn’t have to wear dress clothes, which was nice as well. From what I can tell I am going to get more sleep on the plane ride home because I feel like I am becoming more and more tired everyday.
Day 11 (5/14/08)
We were suppose to have a lecture or two at the university today but since the campus is a little unstable right now from the strike they decided to cancel the lectures (cheers). So we basically had another free day. We had some options; if we had something “educational” planned we did not have to go the park with everyone. But the majority of the people wanted to go to the park because they had some games planned for us. So we all hopped on a bus and headed to this botanical garden/park. We found an open field, and when they said “games” I figured we would play some soccer or volleyball or something, but I was sorely wrong. They had us play games that I think i played in 3rd or 4th grade. We played games like izzy dizzy, this balloon popping game, and musical chairs where instead of using chairs we used humans for chairs. I actually won the musical chairs game, and received an Universidad de Santa Maria t-shirt which was pretty cool. Finally we ended the day by playing a friendly game of soccer. The soccer game ended because we were running out of daylight, and I believe the score ended with a 2-2 tie. Later on that day me and a few of my friends on the trip, had an urge to get some pizza. So we walked the streets of Vina del Mar and we found this small little pizza bar. They had 38 different types of pizza, with combinations I have never seen before. We were all feeling adventurous and figured we are “only in Chile once” so we got two crazy pizzas and ate them so quickly because we were all starving. They were very delicious.
Day 12 (5/15/08)
The last day, kind of sad I have to say. The two weeks went incredibly fast, and was a great time. But today was very relaxing. We had our last company visit today to Multiplant, which pretty much is a huge place where they grow and sell a large variety of plants. I found that this business is very risky, as the owner explained to us. The market is very fishy, sometimes people don’t want to buy certain plants, and if he grows too much of a certain plant that no one wants to buy, he pretty much just has to throw them out. Also, as most know, plants are very sensitive, and if a large crop of his plants were to come down with a disease or something of that matter, he could lose a ton of money. The company sold plants to large supermarkets and big companies at wholesale. But I was interested to find that they do sell to the individual at smaller quantities but for much higher rates. Overall, it was very cool walking through the green houses and seeing all the different types of plants being grown. There were so many plants that I have never seen or heard of before in my life. This visit was relatively quick, but felt long because we all knew we were going to a small resort down the road where there was a buffet, and all you can drink beer and soft drinks. And this place did not fail to impress or meet expectations. First they gave us these small empenadas to hold us over for lunch, and we were allowed to go to the bar and have as much beer and soda as we wanted. Then at 1:30 we had lunch, which was so delicious because it was just a huge buffet of a variety of foods. After lunch we all just went outside and hung out by the pool, took naps, and talked about what we are going to do tonight for our last night.
Final Summary Journal Entry
Ethical Issues in My Profession
Depending on the company in Chile, most of the companies had very similar industry standards and regulations pertaining to environmental, safety, and employee issues. Most of the companies however, did not go much into detail about employee benefits, wages and working conditions. But from what I could see, at the companies we went to, they took pride in keeping their working conditions for their employees very high. Unlike the United States, Chile did not seem to have to address a diversity quota. For example, in the United States most companies are required to hire a certain number of people from a variety of racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds, as well as people from both sexes. This is not as much of an issue in Chile simply because they do not have as much diversity in their population as the United States does. But I am sure that most of these companies do have a policy on hiring men and women equally. Since racial discrimination and diversity quotas are stressed very highly in the United States, the differences in these standards between the two countries could attract American businesses to spread to Chile simply because they would not have to worry as much about a diversity standard. I believe this could be good for Chile because it would create more jobs, and put more money into an economy of a country that is still developing and growing, while at the same time making more money for a company in the United States.
Education Breadth as Professional Development
Based on my sole experience in Chile I would definitely say that education abroad is necessary. There is no way to experience how business and engineering is done in another country unless you visit and spend time there. And in this day and age almost every large company is outsourcing and “opening shop” internationally. So if you get hired by one these said companies, and you do not have any international experience at all, you could be in for a big surprise which could end up hurting you and/or your company in the long run. Furthermore, there were enough differences between Chile and the United States to definitely say that students should expand their studies abroad for a program similar in length to this one or longer. And the longer the program the more the student will gain from the international experience. With this in mind, and from my experiences in Chile, I do plan on taking one if not a few more courses pertaining to business and engineering internationally. I would definitely consider taking a class that deals with the United States in the international market, also maybe an economics history class showing how the business in the Unites States has changed as well as in the world. Furthermore, I would also be interested in maybe taking a foreign language class, because I can definitely say I experienced the difficulty of the language barrier during my stay in Chile.
Lifelong Learning, Continuing Education as Professional Development
Life long learning and continuing education is very important, especially in this day and age. When we went to the winery, I’m sure the owner of the winery did not learn in school how to exactly to grow grapes, and brew the exact wine that they sell at Vina Indomita. I’m sure he learned the basics, and some of the business and engineering/science principles on how to brew wine and have a successful wine business. But the owner by no means knew exactly how to brew wine to tasted as fantastic as the wine we tasted right from the start. I’m sure that took years of learning and mistakes. As well as learning from other successful wineries. Obviously technology has become a big part in the wine industry. Bigger and more advanced machines that help produce the wine only make things easier. Technology is helping the wine industry brew better tasting wine faster. Although there is no getting around the fact that wine has to basically just sit there and age in order for it to taste good. Life long learning and continuing education is important for business men and women but is vital for engineers, especially the type of engineering I intend to go into (computer engineering). If I do not continue my education after I graduate from the University of Pittsburgh, I will be left so behind in the computer industry within 2 years because of how fast computer technology changes, and the amount of new technology emerging. And obviously if I do not learn about new technology and the way in which computers are changes, there would be no way for me to compete with others in the business and engineering world. Therefore rendering me useless.
The Social Environment of Professional Life
The one thing I noticed about traveling to foreign countries is that we Americans, are extremely ignorant to international news. So far, the people in the foreign countries I have been to, know immediately what I am talking about when I talk about an American current event. And I noticed when talking to the Chilean students the same trend applied. It was very convenient being able to talk about American news with them and them knowing exactly what I was talking about. It made relating to them much easier. On the other hand, when they tried to talk about Chilean news or other international news, for the most part, none of us knew what they were talking about, and it was quite embarrassing. Having knowledge of what is going on in other countries besides the United States is vital if you are going to be working internationally. In business it is very important because in most business transactions you usually start with small talk, and news is a great way to start conversation and to let the person who you are doing business with that you are on top of things and are genuinely interested in their culture and what is going on in the world. The same rules apply with engineering, especially since many of the people who I could be coordinating projects with will most likely be from foreign countries. Amongst business and engineering on the international level there are social, political and diversity issues. It is very important for people like us, who are prospective engineers and businessmen/women, to recognize these issues because for the most part these issues will be the reason we are doing business with other people or improving and designing a new product (as an engineer). And if we fail to keep up with what is happening in the world, we will be rendered less effective therefore making us less successful in the end. The importance of these issues is not recognized by most Americans and should be because careers can be ruined or not as successful as you would like them to be due to ignorance.
Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams
Obviously working in teams is one of the most important skills that you learn and most definitely develop in college, purely because when you get out into the real world, and get a real job, you will work in a team at some time and point. I feel that my “team work” skills have improved on a tremendous scale after only 2 semesters of college. As an engineer it is vital that you are able to work in a team and cooperate with people of different backgrounds, whether it is their skill level, expertise, race, sex, etc. I noticed that most of the engineers on this trip only hung out with engineers. I was told by many of the business students that I was one of the only engineers who actually “ventured to the other side” to befriend some business students. I found it was fun to compare majors, and complain about what is hard and what isn’t, and things of that matter. It is even more important when it comes to a real world job because business people and engineers have to work in harmony (in most cases) for things to run smoothly and for projects to be a success. So I figured why not start now, on my trip to Chile, to see how business students think, and some of the things they are learning in college. Furthermore, I also picked up some great friends in the works, so it was a win-win situation. The only challenges I found when working with my group of engineers and business students is that when we try to explain engineering aspects of a project, and vice-versa, neither of us can understand what the other is trying to explain, simply because neither of us have heard about what the other is talking about. But other than that, and as said before, I thought it was great to mix and intermingle with the business students.
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