Global citizenship — global competence

Global competence is defined as the ability to understand the significance of global issues. After this trip, I would consider myself a global citizen. This trip was extremely eye opening for me and gave me good insight on how life outside of America is. 

Expanding Worldview – Differing ways of living
One thing I found incredibly interesting was that no matter what time of the day it is or where you are at in Ireland, there is always someone drinking a Guinness! Guinness is the most advertised beer, even outside of a bar or pub! Trying a Guinness made me realize I’m definitely not a beer drinker, but I loved seeing how popular they were here.

Expanding Worldview -- The American Sentiment:
While preparing to go to Ireland, I realized that many countries don’t have the best outlook on Americans due to some of our stereotypes and the Anti-American sentiment. Although I heard everyone in Ireland was very friendly, I was still a little nervous to see how we would be treated due to us being from America. Once we were in Ireland, I was very shocked to how genuine and kind each person we came in contact with was. Everyone was always happy to help if we needed directions, and every person I met was extremely friendly and loved to hear about America and where we were from. Being able to experience Ireland’s culture and amazing people has been something I will always remember!

Trip 2 of the day — VMware! This company was fascinating. It is a cloud computing company that has locations all over the world, one including Atlanta. We learned about many different aspects of the company, including international finance and taxes. This business trip was very informative and I found it interesting that it was located in several states in America! 

Cork Ireland — what a beautiful city! Yesterday we arrived in Cork and did a walking tour and I loved hearing about the background of this gorgeous city. It is full of history and has such breathtaking views! 

Day 9 — we toured the Heineken Ireland headquarters in Cork! It was so cool to be able to see the different beers and the ones that were popular in Ireland that we don’t have an America. We got to try different beers, and see where the beer was made. Being able to tour this headquarters was such a unique and fun experience! 

For the past two days we have been able to tour Galway, which is an absolutely beautiful city! Day 7 of the study abroad trip, we took a day trip to Inishmore, Aran Island, which is located about an hour outside of Galway. The Inishmore island has a population of around only 800 people! I loved the Aran Islands and being able to see some of the most incredible views today!!

Global Issues -- Globalization

            Globalization is the process of people, companies, and businesses integrating internationally. Globalization is driven by the modernization of our world and has both positive and negative impacts on the Irish economy. A positive of globalization is that it allows Ireland to specialize in products that they can produce the most efficiently. Ireland is the second most globalized country in the world, according to the KOF Index of globalization. Two factors that contribute to Ireland’s globalization are the location and the language. Ireland is located near Europe, Asia, and the United States of America, which benefits the country greatly in terms of globalization. English is one of the world’s most spoken languages, so it being a language Ireland is fluent in also benefits them due to no language barriers existing while trading.

https://cvdl.ben.edu/blog/ireland-globalization/

Global Issues -- Stereotypes

The typical stereotypes of Americans are that they are over-weight. I was very aware of the obesity rate in America, but was unaware of the fact that the United States of America as a whole was stereotyped as obese. Over forty percent of Americans are struggling with obesity, which doesn’t come as a surprise to me. In the movie Philomena that we watched for class, the Irish woman had just discovered that her son was raised in the United States with an American family. After this discovery, she showed concern about her sons weight due to Americans portion sizes being larger and her belief that most Americans are over-weight. I am very interested to see how much of a difference there is in portion sizes while in Ireland or if any citizens believe the same stereotype about Americans.