The Fuqua Kaleidoscope

Bariloche, Argentina

So, as promised, here’s more on spring break. What’s a break without food?

If you’re in Argentina, you can not, and will not escape, empanadas. You can get empanadas stuffed with almost anything – although beef is most traditional. Argentine beef and steak is world famous, so yes, thats probably what you’ll end up eating a lot! After eating beef and empanadas for 2 weeks, I even started missing Fox Center (our lunch place at Fuqua) salad bar. Hah!

So, what fun stuff did we do in Buenos Aires? For me, the highlight was going to a tango show! Tango has to be one of the most difficult dances I’ve seen. As part of our last GATE course class, we attempted to learn tango so that we could appreciate it more when we went to Argentina. I’m not sure any of us ended up learning it in the 1 hour session, however, we definitely appreciated the tango! The show was tango through the ages, and basically revealed how the dance form has changed from the 50s and 60s to what it is now. Modern, bold and fast.

In terms of natural beauty, the best place we saw was Bariloche – a city located in the foothills on Andes and surrounded by the blue-est lakes I’ve ever seen. Blue, and not just blue, but the brightest shades of blue you can imagine. Look it up on Wikipedia or Google Images if you don’t believe me Even managed to do horseback riding through the mountains thanks to our group tour hosted at a local sheep ranch.

The thing about GATE trips though (sadly) is that they go by too fast! 13 days seems like a long time when you’re planning, getting the visa, attending classes…but when you’re enjoying spring break, it seems like a whirl of fun. And all too soon, its over  

As I look back, I can definitely say its been one of the best parts of my experience at Fuqua till now – been a great way of meeting new people, making new friends and above all, learning a lot about a different country and its culture, businesses and toursim!

Until next time, here’s a pic of Bariloche, Argentina!

Welcome Fuqua-blog-readers! Let me give you a short intro as this is my first post – Fuqua rocks! Enough said

So, we’re already in Term 4. I can’t believe the first year has flown by so fast. Spring Break was amazing – I went on a GATE to South America, something I’ve been wanting to do ever since I applied and came to Fuqua. Sadly, we had to cut Chile from our itinerary due to the earthquake, so we made it GATE Argentina.

The GATE course is structured similarly to other courses at Fuqua. During the term, we met 3 hours each week, learning about the economies, politics, social-cultural trends and business environment in Chile and Argentina. Some highlights included watching a great documentary on Eva Peron, learning why S.America is so passionate about ‘futbol’, and even taking a tango class! To truly experience what we read in our coursepack or learnt through class discussions, we spent 2 weeks in Argentina – Buenos Aires, Bariloche and Iguazu Falls. We visited 9 diverse companies, ranging from non-profit organizations to online travel sites. 

Meeting senior management from those companies gave us a better picture of what it would be like to do business in Argentina. It’s unpredictable, challenging, innovative and volatile. However, each company we met approached the challenges from a really different perspective.

My next few posts are going to be primarily about my GATE trip – it really has been an amazing experience, and I strongly recommend y’all to do something similar!

Adios!