While many students were binge-watching Netflix or sleeping in until 2 p.m., students in COMM 4693 — “The Business of Saving Nature” — traveled to Costa Rica to explore sustainable business practices. Led by Commerce Assoc. Prof. Mark White, the trip offered students the opportunity to witness what they had learned about in class firsthand.
“I am very passionate about the environment and sustainability, but as an undecided first year, I don’t know if I want to major in that,” first-year College student Audrey Jackson said. “Taking this class was an opportunity to learn more without committing to anything.”
The trip to Costa Rica was only one part of a semester-long course revolving around sustainability. For the first half of the semester, students learned about sustainable business practices related to conservation through case studies.
“In most of the case studies, there would be a cliffhanger at the end where a business had to make a difficult economic decision, and we’d go into depth about why they chose the option they did,” Jackson said.
In addition to preparing students through case studies, White also helped to build a community both in class and on the trip.
“When you're young and traveling in a foreign country with people your age, you see things you don’t quite understand, you talk with them about your questions and get their perspective on the issue,” White said.
First-year College student Bill Koepsell said the friendships he cultivated with his classmates enriched his experience in Costa Rica.
“You’re with people in class, and you see them as students [who are] always trying to say the smart thing because that’s what students are supposed to do,” Koepsell said. “On the trip, however, within just a couple short days, everyone had let their guard down, and we became one big, eighteen-person family.”
Koepsell also attributes his positive experience in part to diversity within the group of traveling students.
“[We encompassed] such a broad range of years and majors that we probably wouldn't have met any other way,” Koepsell said. “Being on our tour bus for a while, though, packed into a tight space together, we were all just college students in a new and unfamiliar place.”
The students primarily learned about ecotourism — an industry interested in conserving natural environments for the sake of capitalizing upon visits from tourists — and visited ecotourism sites such as EARTH University.
“We went to an indigenous community, and they basically showed us around,” Jackson said. “We paid them to show us how they live, make their chocolate and use their plants. They’re working, but it also helps us see around the country.”
On top of traveling to an ant farm, a five-star resort run by a Commerce alumnus and a banana processing plant, the class still had time to go on a canopy zipline tour of the rainforest.
White has taught this class for over 10 years, and travels to a different location each year with students. This course has sent students to South Africa, Brazil and Ecuador and will center on business in Cuba next year for the first time.
For students who are unsure whether study abroad is right for them, White emphasizes the hands-on aspect of a trip that simply cannot be replicated in the classroom.
“Talking with your peers as you’re trying to make sense of the world is the most fantastic thing you can learn,” White said.
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