My last Spanish course was Spanish for Business, which was more of a Costa Rican intro to Business class taught in Spanish. I learned a lot about the government in Costa Rica, its' businesses, and Spanish business vocabulary. We went on a number of company tours and gave a number of presentations to share business practices with the class.
We learned about their federal government and different ministries that they have to regulate business including health, taxes, importation and exportation. We learned about interviewing and writing resume's and cover letters. We learned about the different levels of businesses: the primary secondary and final producers. The primary producers sell raw mateials, the secondary producers process them ant the final producers sell them to the public.
We went to a local small restaurant, La Musa Confusa, and interviewed their owner to learn how the business was started, what regulations she faced in opening and operating a restaurant and what changes her business went through over the 4 years it has been in business. She also said that they would like to open another location in the future. This gave us a look into the process of owning and operating a business in general as well as the regulations in Costa Rica.
We went to a local supermarket as well to view their product placement and the competition that the Costa Rican products faced in that store. We looked into Café Britt, Dos Pinos, and a number of other brands. We also examined the different types of supermarkets that exist in Costa Rica and their intended customers.
We went to Dos Pinos to see their products as well and talked with their manager of public relations who talked to us about their advertising campaigns and partnerships with the government to promote healthy lifestyles. We learned about different types of advertisements as well at this time and were able to apply them to Dos Pinos.
My favorite field trip was when we went to Corsica, a pineapple plantation about 2 hours away. We got to see the process of pineapple washing, packaging, and shipping. We got a tour of their fields and saw how pineapples were harvested. And, our tour guide too freshly cut pineapples and we got to taste their pineapples fresh from the fields. They were really good! I don't usually like pineapples, but I guess my time in Costa Rica has taught me to appreciate new foods.
I was impressed with their manufacturing processes for washing, sorting, packaging, and transporting the pineapples. They had a very organized process with separate jobs for everyone. They had large rolls of banding that came in from the ceiling and a freezer area to cool the pineapples for transportation and exportation to keep the freshness of the pineapples and prevent additional thawing.
Our final project was that we had to make our own company and determine how we would run it, who we would sell to, what we would sell, and prepare a presentation for possible investors. My business idea was a "chat room" type website that could be used to provide new speakers to a language conversational practice since schools don't do a good job teaching "talking and listening" and therefore do not teach people who are hands-on learners. I figure, if this was implemented, I would start with a small program at my university and expand my business from there.
This was overall a great course to take, although I would like to take the Spanish for Business course at Grand Valley to compare the material from Costa Rican business to American Business and learn even more vocabulary.
No comments:
Post a Comment