After being back in the United States for a week, I am ready to go back to Europe. After visiting seven different countries in four weeks, my perspective of every single country has changed. While each business we visited was different in their own way, I realized most marketing is similar in the sense of finding your target market and strategically marketing to them. We visited a wide variety of companies including Burceher watch company, the Swiss Paraplegic center, and Design Bridge and Partners Advertising Agency. Students were also required to create presentations on the majority of the cities and companies we visited which led to us having a general idea of a city or company before we got the privilege of visiting.
Another requirement for our course was to speak to a local of each country and conduct an interview. In our interviews, we were required to ask a bit of background about the person being interviewed, how they felt about America, and anything they thought we should know about the host country we were visiting. In my opinion, this was a great way to gain a new perspective and gain valuable recommendations on sights to see or places to eat instead of going into a country blindly. It also helped us understand what other countries believed about America and helped form our perspectives of the countries we were visiting. Overall, my initial impression of Europe was quite positive and I was extremely excited to get to visit all of these countries. Upon completing the trip, every country met my expectations and some even exceeded them. I respect the people in all the countries we went to because almost every person we encountered spoke English as well as their native language. While I tried to speak the languages of the countries we were in, learning a new language is hard in such a short amount of time. To conclude, I would recommend this trip to anyone interested in marketing and studying abroad because the program is so articulately coordinated and you will make some amazing memories.
