Students spend spring break in Morocco for international business class

Though Antonio Ybarra and Isaac Geiger recently returned from a business trip in Morocco, they’d like to go back. Like next week. 

“Everyone we met was so friendly and didn’t just see it as a business interaction,” Ybarra said. “I feel like if I wanted to go on vacation there right now, I could stay in some of their homes because they would invite me in.”

Added Geiger, “My biggest takeaway was the hospitality of the people. They are very welcoming and proud of their country, some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

Geiger, Ybarra, five other students, and four Doermer School of Business faculty spent two weeks in the north Africa country with a special studies international business program class. Around for more than 20 years, this was first trip in two years because of the pandemic. 

Traditionally, the trips average 12 students and take place over spring break. Previous trips have included Ireland, France, India, Bulgaria, Romania, Thailand, and Mexico. 

Morocco is a popular destination thanks to Professor Ahmed Rachdi, a native who taught the class and was accompanied by fellow faculty members Eric Harvey, Prasad Bingi and Dean Melissa Gruys. Students were Samuel Bostater, Nallely Cardenas, Abbi Garwood, Payton Scully, Emily Weaver, and Ybarra and Geiger. The group visited six cities and made 22 presentations to more than 1,600 Moroccan high school students.

“Their lives are changed, even if it’s just the perspective of somewhere else in the world,” Gruys said. “I find this everywhere I go, that you always really appreciate home and the great country we live in when you see what other people have or don’t have. Those niceties that we live with every day and take for granted are not available a lot of places in the world.”

Many students have never traveled beyond Indiana, Gruys said. Travel is free to students, as the program has received $125,000 in grants from private foundations as well as donations from companies and individuals. 

During the eight-week, three-credit class, students study the culture, language, and business practices of a destination and meet host-country students via Zoom. Sometimes those students conduct in-country research for their PFW counterparts.

PFW students work with a northeast Indiana business on potential opportunities in that country, with company representatives sometimes joining the trip. This year’s students were working with PFW in an international marketing context, examining what factors students in Morocco value when choosing higher education in the United States. In 2017, DeBrand Fine Chocolates founder and owner Cathy Brand-Beere went to Morocco.

“There is only so much that can be taught in a classroom setting, and it was exciting to see these students learn about our business and then then do extensive research before taking the trip,” Brand-Beere wrote. “While in Morocco, they conducted tastings with local students, learned about the culture at a Moroccan university, and determined if our products were the right fit for their culture/location while also getting out, exploring, and experiencing life in a different nation.”

Coming home, the students give presentations on campus and to the business owner.

"It was evident by the amount of detail and specific observations and recommendations that these students were completely immersed in the facts and tasks of the projects,” Hoosier Hill Farm President Pete Roesner wrote of a previous trip. “This was a professional presentation that was given by some very promising young business people."

Faculty members are in the process of submitting proposals for the 2023 spring semester trip. 

“It was crazy to see just how many people would walk up and introduce themselves out of the blue,” Ybarra said. “No one was shy, and even in the classrooms. It only took us a minute or two to talk to everyone and get to know them even though English might have been their second or third language. It was a life-changing experience.”

That included making life-long friends with trip companions and getting to know professors personally and developing long-lasting mentorships — along with making international friendships.

“I learned that it’s really easy to get stuck in your ways, to get stuck in a routine, so going to a different country shows you what’s different in the world but also how similar we are,” Geiger said. “We as people have so many more similarities, and we are so much more alike than we’ll ever be different.”