gabby's trip to chile! woo hoo!

2009-06-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

Final Journal Entry

Ethical Issues in My Profession

In recent years Chile has transformed into a modern, industrial, capitalist country very similar to that of the United States. Upon observance, the two countries really share a lot in common when it comes to jobs and the professional setting. For example, safety of the employees is perhaps the largest employer-employee on-the-job concern. In the United States, there are various rules and regulations particular to each company and ones that are national safety standards. In Chile there were two instances where safety standards could not be ignored. First, at Codelco, the equipment required to simply be standing within working areas was astounding. Without all the proper attire, it was impossible to walk around. Secondly, at Centauro upon entering the factory there were various warnings and instructions regarding safety. They were so explicit that they even showed a finger that had been sliced off from bad usage of a machine. The impression I received was that the employer was generally well-concerned with the well-being of the employee which is why the safety rules were length and the working conditions were typically respectable. By this I mean that the employees of the companies we visited seemed to enjoy their jobs (the people in the vineyards and at LAN were smiling and joking around), and the facilities and equipment was clean and well-kept. Besides safety issues, the system of employee benefits was mainly controlled by each individual instead of mass company regulation. This is much like that of the system in the United States. Employees in both countries typically get to set aside money from each paycheck for healthcare and retirement savings. While healthcare is individually decided (usually) in both countries, the social security arrangement in Chile is more privatized than the one in the United States.

Due to the Catholic upbringing, Chile still remains to be a more conservative country in terms of lifestyle choices and beliefs. Women have slowly been gaining more and more power in the workplace, although when walking around Santiago, the number of men in business suits was dominant. However, this is no surprise to someone living in the United States who would also encounter this in the streets of Pittsburgh or New York. The way Chileans also differentiate between different races and different sexualities is similar to the United States. There are those races or groups who end up being the teased and ridiculed. In Chile, this can be seen in the way most Chileans of European descent look down upon the Mapuche. Also, we noticed while out with the Chilean students that the terms “gay” and “queer” are often used in just as derogatory manners as they are in the United States due to how “abnormal” being homosexual still is in both countries.

Ultimately, the business culture in both countries seems to be very similar. The only difference I have noticed is the market in each country. What someone would pay for an item in the United States is typically more than the price someone would pay for the same item in Chile. Any business would have to consider this when doing international business between the two countries. Additionally, both countries participate in numerous trade arrangements, which yet again prove a similarity as to how business would do equally as well in either country.

Educational Breadth as Professional Development

After traveling to Chile (and other international locales), I have found that it is possible to get by without previous knowledge or experience of the destination country. In fact, after preparing thoroughly for this Chile trip, I realized that I learned and gained the most from actually being there and witnessing it in real life. No matter how much studying you do beforehand, nothing is quite like truly experiencing it for yourself.

The bottom line is that economies constantly change. While it could be beneficial for students to take courses on global issues, there is never enough time to learn about every economy and culture in the world. During my trips to a couple parts of Europe and Chile, no major conflicts occurred due to a clash of cultures.

The true goal of engineering school is to teach students how to be problem solvers, that is, how to successfully analyze and resolve any situation. Although there may be different means used to achieve this goal, every engineering program in the United States attempts to have students reach this ultimate goal. Luckily, problem solving is a global language. Engineering relates most directly to technical issues instead of global economical struggles. For an engineering student with an already exhausting schedule, it would be unnecessary and impossible to include such an additional course load into the curriculum. Engineers everywhere can find ways to communicate across languages and cultures to solve problems due to the nature of their tasks (like solving the energy crisis or improving artificial limbs, for example).

The real struggle in handling cross cultural events would lie with those involved in international business or even business alone. Like I said before, I don’t think there is a way to study all the economies in the world, for that would be long and weary. However, it may be nice to take a course that would summarize the majority of the countries that the United States directly or indirectly does business with.

I don’t feel as though this should be a requirement; instead it should be offered as a supplementary program for those intent upon doing global business.

Lifelong Learning, Continuing Education as Professional Development

As previously mentioned, the perk of engineering school is that it sets students up to be thinkers and instills the skills needed to survive in the professional world of engineering. Essentially what this means is that they teach people how to think so that when they receive problems that need to be corrected as professional assignments, they have the tools needed to accomplish such tasks by themselves. This implies that most of the actual trial and error learning occurs when on the job. While this is true for engineering school, it does not hold for all majors and careers.

Each company we visited in Chile had different careers available and different tasks relevant to each position. Higher education is deeply valued in the industrialized parts of Chile much like it is in the United States. Many employers expect employees to have college degrees. It is up for debate, however, how much of what was learned in college actually is used on the job. For some places like at the Chilean Stock Exchange, employees needed to have updated information that could only be learned in college. For example, the engineers who served as technology specialists needed to understand computer programming in order to set up operating systems and to be able to combat kinks in the system. Likewise, chemical engineers at Codelco must have an understanding of metals and mixtures to gain the best composition for the copper that is being produced. Employees at LAN probably required the most college training due to the intense, technical nature of their job. Other jobs, however, developed knowledgeable employees through on the job training. Most people who worked at Vina Indomita most likely learned things from working and from other employees. I do not think that college teaches people how to correctly pick grapes off of a stem. Nevertheless, I did hear from someone down in Chile that they have a wine-making program at some colleges. Additionally, people working at Centauro only had to do simple tasks like removing tomato paste from an assembly line and putting it into a large bin.

It was evident in all the companies that technology has greatly relieved the employees of numerous duties and of great time. From all the machines that directly can the products at Centuaro to the information system designed to help the Stock Exchange flow more easily, technology has improved the quality of life at the jobs.

Lucky for me, engineering school does a great job of preparing us for life as professionals. As engineers, we are prepared to find our own way in the professional setting so that we can compete against other professionals aimed at finishing tasks ahead of us. From our visits, it appeared that Chileans were qualified for the jobs they were working, even though they may or may not have had formal education. In the case of some Codelco employees, the job had been theirs since a very young age. What set them apart was the way in which they adapted to the addition of technology into the job setting and they way it propelled them forward into the future of the company.

The Social Environment of Professional Life

When in Chile, I experienced television programs, magazines, commercials, and even political debates that reminded me of my home country. From watching the series finale of Friends to a slightly delayed version of Gossip Girl with some serious Spanish subtitles, I enjoyed a pseudo-comfort. Through all the American media and pop culture that has invaded Chile, many Chileans are aware of the current state of the United States. It showed Chileans a sense of what is being talked about right now like President Obama, the economy crisis, liberating homosexual relationships, the class system, etc. Unfortunately, the same cross-culture invasion has not happened in the United States. Before we travelled to Chile, I knew very little about current issues happening in the present day. While they were so educated about us, I felt disgraced that we knew little about them. Fortunately, Mimo taught us a lot, and showed us even more how the United States and Chile are related. The education of Chileans on the United States probably increases over time because the day I talked to the children on the beach, they knew very little about the United States and hassled me with questions.

The fact that Chile is experiencing impact from the economy crisis and also the competition for the presidential election at the end of the year both aid the understanding of the direction American business and the American economy is headed. Chileans that have much knowledge about their own country and about the United States can interpret what plans of action would be best suited in tackling any business operation.

It is unfortunate that the United States and its culture have more effect on Chile than Chile does on the United States. However, maybe this is the advantage that Chilean firms have over their United States competitors.

Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams

For starters, I’m not positive that it is always necessary for people to function on diverse teams. Sometimes having people from similar backgrounds proves to work out well in terms of getting the job done because everyone is more on the same level. However, I understand that it is never a good thing to shy away from diverse teams because they can be effective and rewarding. On this occasion, I found myself working with two other engineers and one business student. It was great to have company that thought along the same terms as I did; however, it was difficult to get a business perspective on a lot of things due to business minority in our group. My strategies for these type of groups seems to always be the same: make a simple step by step list of what needs to get done and try to delegate the work as much as possible. Usually this works well to get the task completed.

In professional settings one might also expect to encounter diverse groups. Language and cultural barriers would be the toughest things to get over. In these types of settings, it is best to focus not on what beliefs are different between conflicting members, but what compromises could be made to correct the situation. The most important thing is to look at the task at hand and what needs to ultimately be accomplished, so that it can always be kept in mind.

2009-05-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

WE ARE ON EASTER ISLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!

we are really sad that plus 3 is over and we already miss all of our new friends, but brad and i are going to have an awesome time...

its hot here.. and sunny!!!

2009-05-14T14:39:00.001-07:00

wow i didnt realize how tardy i have been with this. so much has happened since monday (well not really, but it seems like it has been forever since monday). so let's run down through each day...

tuesday:
today was our trip to isla negra (one of pablo nerudas homes). it was pretty neat except it was kinda cold and rainy that day. we ate at a fish place (which i did not care for but everyone else seemed to enjoy it okay). we really didn't do anything else except eat at our favorite empanada place. it was so good. i tried a new one called pollo picante which is like spicy cheese and chicken. it was delicious.

wednesday:
today we went bowling. that was the only thing we had going on all day. it was okay. i did terrible in the first game and i was actually doing decent in the second game, but then we had to leave. for dinner we went to a new place called hot chili peppers. it was okay, not the best ever. my mojito was pretty good. that night about 7 of us went to a few places (rufino, chucaro and this other bar/salsa club). it was a decent night i guess.

thursday:
our last full day in chile (well, for most everyone). i guess i should say our last full day on plus 3 adventure. today was amazing. we went horseback riding through all different areas. it was sooo soo soo soo much fun. i was proud of myself because i was the first one on the horses and i did really well. i think i enjoyed this horseback riding more than the one we did in nicaragua. after we got done riding they had a barbeque prepared for us. it was sooo good. the scenery was beautiful too. tonight we have our farewell dinner at diego's pizza (where we ate first day). then later im sure everyone is going to go out and party since its the last night here. brad and i have to catch a cab at 4:30 in the morning to take us into santiago so we can catch our flight to easter island woot woot. it is definitely going to be a long night....

btw - i keep meaning to get my pictures on facebook, but with the internet problems and everything its been hard to get it done and find the time to do it. hopefully i can do it once we get to the hotel on easter island...

until next time...

2009-05-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

so yesterday was the most rewarding day of the trip that i´ve had. it began very sluggishly (well actually, i was up and at it pretty early compared to most). once people finally began to get moving around and everyone took a shower in jo´s shower since our wing had no hot water, we decided to go down to the beach where there are a lot of stalls of arts and craft souvenir type things. there were a lot of us who went to the beach. however, as many people were deciding to go back to the hotel, matt, mark and i decided to follow through with the original plans that we had mentioned we wanted to do and headed back to reñaca where the fish rocks and the sand dunes were. i had googled it earlier in the morning and it had said it was a 2.5 kilometer walk just into the town of reñaca and then we figured it was another mile to mile and a half to the place where we wanted to go. so we began walking.

we walked to the edge of vina and then decided to catch a bus to reñaca. when the bus started to go the wrong direction we just jumped off and walked the rest of the way. the walk was very very pretty and we got some amazing pictures. we even got to see seals or sea lions (we aren´t sure which). some parts of the walk were kind of dangerous though since we were walking on the side of the road or the side of the rocky cliffs.

anyways, we were so happy once we finally made it to the fish rocks (i´ll show everyone pictures later). mark immediately started climbing out the rocks with the fish on it. i made it a little bit of the way but waited for him to come back so i at least had a spot before i started to climb out too. matt was chicken (he claimed he was scared of heights as his reason for not going, but i said so what! i am too!). i ended up making it out to the rock right before the set of rocks with the fish on it which made me feel really proud.

after this adventure we went to the other side of the street and started climbing the sand dunes which are actually mountains of sand. you wouldn´t believe the size of them. it was a very difficult work out. it probably took us a good 20 minutes to 30 minutes to walk up there. once we were up there we were so glad that we had made it. the views were incredible! we knew everyone would be so disappointed that they hadn´t come with us. the way down was much easier. i decided to barrel roll down the hill which was really fun. i have a video of it. matt´s idea wasn´t as successful because he sort of swam down the hill face first which caused him to get so much sand in his shirt that he looked like he was pregnant. speaking of massive amounts of sand, the sand in all of our shoes probably weighed at least 20 lbs.

we joined the rest of the group for dinner that night at a place called fornini´s which is an italian place that a plus 3 chile group had gone before. it was pretty good. the chocolate mousse at the end was the best part....

monday´s adventures....

so today was our trip into santiago. it was pretty fun. first we had to go to the chilean stock exchange which was definitely informative and interesting. then we walked around a bit to see some of the sights.

for lunch we went to this fish market called mercado central (not to be confused with market central at pitt). it smelled disgusting. we ate family style except for the few of us who dont particularly like fish. my steak was delicious though!

after lunch we headed to this gigantic hill with the statue of the virgin mary on it (the famous one that everyone knows about). we had to take an incline up which was pretty cool, much better than the one we took in valpariso. the views at the top were incredible!! with the colors from the sky and the layer of smog, the pictures look amazing.

and now, after an early morning, an exhausting day, and a long bus ride back, we are now at the hotel and probably going to get some dinner relatively soon and then maybe go out tonight.

until next time...

2009-05-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

so its pretty early right now on our free sunday. everyone is still asleep. but i´m up and at it already. yesterday we went to valparaiso on our own (we even figured out how to take the subway there which is kinda cool). it was really fun. we ended up just walking around alot which some people complained about, but we ended up having a really good time. we started out by doing a boat tour of the bay area. it was really short but for 4 dollars it was nice to take some good pictures. we have been having a debate because a couple of the 9 people that went say they saw a penguin in the water but no one else saw it so we dont necessarily believe them. so after the boat tour we walked around to the little craft area right next to the boats. there were some pretty cool stuff there. after that we went back up the incline that we went on the other day to get back to the top of the hill. there is a bunch more little craft places up there that were nice. we spent a good amount of time looking around at those and then we began our adventure at the top of the hill. no one really knew where to go we just kept walking around but eventually we ended up finding some steps that led down to a beach. the water was pretty cold at the beach but it was really nice because there was a rocky area where we all sat down for a few minutes and enjoyed the view/beach. i even ended up having a full on conversation with these little kids who were wondering where we were from and asking all these questions about the united states. so after the beach we all went back to the hotel and mostly got on the computer and stuff. brad, mark and i went to mcdonalds to use the internet there to check email and look at facebook pictures that jo had put up. after that we decided to go to dinner at tiki tacos, which was pretty good. i think the best thing was the brownie tiki taco (brownie sundae) that brendan and i split. it was yummy. then for the rest of the night we all pretty must just chilled and watched tv or movies. pretty uneventful night.

so today we are thinking about going back to reñaca which is a beach area and has some really cool rocks that we walked out on the other day (avoiding possible death). and then tonight we have a group dinner at an italian place yum yum.

happy mothers day, colleen! (and happy anniversary too)

2009-05-07T15:54:00.000-07:00

yeah so we are still having internet problems and it seems the best way to use the internet is to go to mcdonalds. so thats where im at right now because we got back earlier tonight than most nights. lets see, yesterday we went to our first company visit at codelco. it was pretty cool but it was a good lil drive away. lets see then we had another lecture at the school. mimo made it great as usual. then we went to a soccer game. the soccer game was really intense and totally different than any soccer game in the united states. the people are really into it. then today we had two company visits, one of which was mine. first we went to vina indomita which was my group's company. it was awesome. it was very pretty and everything. the lady who gave us the tour was very smart and good at speaking english. we then had lunch at a traditional chilean restuarant. it was pretty good. i think i literally ate a whole chicken though. lets see then after lunch we went to the next company visit which was lan airlines. it was pretty cool to see the big planes and see them doing the modifications to the wings. and now here i am!

btw, i think im pretty much the worse person to operate the showers at the hotel because last night when i was trying to take a shower i couldnt get the water at the perfect temperature. first it was smoldering hot and then brendan came in and turned it way up but then that just made it flood again. so then because i couldnt actually get under the smoldering hot water i decided to turn the cold on too but that turned all the water off somehow. it was at this point that i decided to just take a cold shower. i had goosebumps for the whole 5 minutes i was in there and about 30 minutes after it. it was terrible.

tomorrow is the day at the farm! yay! a day of relaxation... and its viernes!

2009-05-05T06:21:00.001-07:00

So Chile has been awesome so far...

We arrived Sunday morning after a very long and exhausting flight during which I probably only slept about 2 hours. It was a relief to land. Of course, then we had to go through some ridiculously long lines for paying our entry fee and the passport control. Anyways, after about an hour we went out to the bus (which was really nice and has a nice bathroom inside the bus) and drove to Vina del Mar. On the bus ride pretty much everyone passed out because everyone was exhausted.

So after arriving at the hotel, we had a free day so we started walking around Vina. It was fun. We went to the beach (which is really cool) and then went to a pizza place for lunch. The pizza was really good except it was hard to just order a plain pizza with just sauce and cheese because they don't just call tomato sauce that. So then we walked around for a while more and later went back to the hotel where everyone again crashed and slept for a few hours. Later that night we went to this place called Margaritas. It was our first group meal. It was pretty good.

The next day....

We spent the whole day at the school (which is immaculate I must add). The university is on a hill that overlooks the ocean (pretty much the ideal place to go to school). The lectures were pretty good. He kept it interesting. Later we went on a tour of Vina and Valparaiso. We went to a lot of places that will be seen by the pictures I am going to post to facebook later today (hopefully). Last night Arturo (one of Chilean students) took us to a bar to hang out. It was fun for a while. Then we went to sleep. The end.

2009-04-06T13:27:00.001-07:00

Here's the link to the Chile Plus 3 Website:

http://www.chileplus3.pitt.edu

Knock yourself out!