Faculty Report: Travel Grant Program

Name: Renatte K. Adler

Faculty/Rank: Professor

Department: Economics

College: rts and Letters

Office phone: X41662

Other phone: X43011

E mail address: radler@mail.sdsu.edu

Proposal title: Internship Exchanges in Costa Rica

Country visited: Costa Rica

Institutions visited: University of Costa Rica (San Jose), Institute of Technology of Costa Rica (Cartago and various campuses), Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE in Turrialba)

Dates of travel: July 26 – August 7, 2001

Number of student

participants: none

Previous IP proposals submitted and grants awarded: none

Other funding for this activity available/applied for: I am involved in discussions with CIBER at SDSU, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, to continue funding for both faculty (as facilitators) and students to travel to Costa Rica and other destinations abroad to work on international internships

Proposal Abstract: This travel project focuses on establishing sponsored internships in Costa Rica through the International Business and Economics Internships Program at SDSU. A sponsored internship abroad is defined as an experience in an international company or NGO in which an exchange student works part-time and is assured of affordable housing, plus a reliable contact for answering questions relating to lifestyle and practical survival skills while abroad. These internships will provide students with experiences that tie classroom studies abroad to career aspirations. This effort will serve to enhance the ongoing exchange programs SDSU is developing with Costa Rican universities.

Travel Report

I. Overview : The International Business and Economics Internship Program at SDSU has a 15-year history of placing interns both regionally and abroad. Starting in 1989, majors in the field of International Business began working on internships in other nations through my courses (Economics 495 and IB 495.) As the director of the program, I have had 2,300 students, primarily majoring in Economics and International Business, but also serving majors in fields such as Business Administration and Communications. In recent years, students in the new emphasis of International Economics have also enrolled in the course to take advantage of the opportunities listed in my Positions List of 100 companies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies. Of the I.B. and I.E. students, approximately 13-15% annually complete internships in countries outside the U.S.

I have had interns in 30 nations, most recently Panama and Viet Nam. Internships abroad consist of operations with AT&T’s International Division, Mercedes-Benz’s Asian production affiliates, a variety of food production export industries such as StarKist in Ecuador, and travel/resort corporations – to name a few. Without a program budget, these types of opportunities are found through a variety of contacts – personal contacts, international Consulates and Chambers of Commerce. However, this “hit-or-miss” method will no longer meet our students’ needs now that the International Business major, which serves 700 students, has recently instituted a requirement of a one-semester study/internship abroad. Furthermore, the International Economics major population is growing rapidly. As a result, the student demand for internships abroad is increasing significantly. Also, the majority of these students are studying Spanish and Latin American society/culture as a part of their major’s requirements. Hence, more and more students are seeking internships in a Latin American country.

It is extremely difficult to negotiate internship placements with businesses abroad, especially in Latin America where many face-to-face meetings to conduct negotiations is the norm. However, I have found that we can facilitate internships abroad in a cost-effective way by establishing ties with university officials, who can then use their contacts with local companies and non-profit agencies to place our students. For this reason, I proposed a trip to Costa Rica in order to enter into discussions of internship exchanges with Costa Rican universities.

Costa Rica is an excellent choice for our students for a number of reasons. First, it is a relatively safe and friendly destination, with a stable government that has made a commitment to practical considerations such as good healthcare and education, in lieu of a standing military. Students will be able to study and participate in internships throughout the country, while I will feel confident about sending them to a cultural environment that will be very different, yet comfortable for those students new to travel outside the U.S.. Second, the travel costs and cost of living are very affordable for SDSU students. I expect that these factors will contribute to encouraging a strong participation rate in the internship exchanges when our programs with Costa Rican campuses are in place.

II. Preparation: Dr. Paul Ganster, Associate Director of International Programs, and Dr. Hugo Murillo, Acting Director of Latin American Studies have been involved in general exchange agreements with the University of Costa Rica (UCR) in San Jose and also the Institute of Technology of Costa Rica (TEC) in Cartago. UCR is a campus with many similarities to SDSU – a student body of about 30,000 which serves a majority of students in the region. Upon consultation with Dr. Murillo, I pre-arranged meetings via email with contacts in the Business and Economics Departments, and with the Director of International Programs as well.

The second major university, TEC offers degree programs in only business and engineering, with the intent of producing trained graduates to enter either management or technological careers. While it is a smaller institution, it serves a very important niche of students, and for this reason the institute has strong contacts in the professional community of Costa Rica. Further, the location is in a quieter and less expensive community for SDSU students who might prefer to live away from San Jose, though it is a 30 minute bus ride from the capital’s center. After determining that TEC’s programs would thus be viable and interesting for SDSU students, I pre-arranged meetings in Cartago with the Director of International Programs.

To facilitate the establishment of internship opportunities with the Costa Rican business community, I relied upon the internet to locate contacts with the local Chamber of Commerce, (Camara de Comercio de Costa Rica) and the American Chamber of Commerce, which conducts business with the American Embassy in San Jose. As a result, I pre-arranged meetings with the directors or each. Also through internet searches, I was able to locate and arrange meetings with directors of two language study programs near San Jose which offer internships.

I also spent a few weeks involved in a chain of communications with international NGO’s, the Neotropica Foundation and the Carribean Conservation Corp. and the World Wildlife Fund. Many of these organizations offer limited internships, but generally only if the student involved pays a substantial fee. Unfortunately, I found that many of these internships are not educational, but simply provide service to local projects (such as counting bird species)– which would not meet the requirements for the International Business or Economics internship classes I teach. Eventually, I arranged meetings with faculty and directors at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) which is located in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund in Turrialba (two hours from San Jose). CATIE offers master’s degrees to Central American students who will work on sustainable development projects in Latin America, but the faculty members I contacted at CATIE were very interested in establishing a program for SDSU interns to work on eco-business topics. Since my area of expertise is environmental economics, and I have students that are interested in gaining experience in this field, I pursued the viability of this specific internship option.

III. Results: I am happy to report that all of the discussions and meetings were extremely encouraging. My primary focus was to establish internship possibilities for SDSU students majoring in International Business or in International Economics. I also found options for Economics students in the Master’s program at SDSU who would like to complete their mandatory internship requirement by working on eco-business in Central America.

All of the people I met with or interacted with were very enthusiastic about the idea of bringing our students to Costa Rica. (A list of officials and email addresses are provided as an addendum to this report.) Further, the country is relatively easy to navigate, and making internet connections, phone calls and faxes is very easy and inexpensive. Our students will find that the people of the cities and the countryside are very hospitable, and safe, comfortable, very affordable facilities are available in every location that I visited.

The directors of each university program and also the Chambers of Commerce were not only willing to place interns with local companies, but were excited about the opportunity to work with SDSU students. Since the University of Costa Rica and the Technological Institute are both entering into formal exchange agreements with SDSU, Costa Rican students will also be able to come to San Diego and participate in my internship program by working with American companies or non-profits in our community. A summary of results at each institution and agency follows.

University of Costa Rica – San Jose

The faculty of the Business school and the Director or International Programs stated their preference that SDSU students participate in one semester of study; to be comprised of business courses specific to Latin American business and also language study. After this initial acclimatization, students would then be placed with a Costa Rican business for a one-semester internship. Housing could be arranged on-campus, off-campus, or with a home-stay. The International Programs Office would work closely with the Director of the local Chamber of Commerce and with the American Chamber of Commerce to place students with member companies. Program cost has yet to be determined, but the discussions indicated that the cost would be not likely exceed that of attending SDSU for two semesters.

The Business program at UCR has a large MBA program with 700 students. Their Dean conveyed his interest in establishing a joint MBA program with SDSU, and I agreed to communicate this information to the Dean of SDSU’s College of Business Administration.

Institute of Technology of Costa Rica – Cartago

The Director of International Programs has a history of can be tailoring study abroad programs to the needs of the visiting student group. She was enthusiastic about the possibility of providing our students with a combined study/experiential internship. Our discussions focused on making an arrangement in which students would take perhaps two courses (a business and language course, for example) while working on a pre-arranged internship. The duration of stay would be 3-4 months, and would include 2 field trips to sites that would convey the flavor of Latin American business.

The Institute has 52 sites throughout the country, and I visited a few in the Central and Western locations of the country. The benefit of internships with TEC would be that our students could have the choice of exploring a variety of possibilities, notably some high-tech industries or the very strong tourism/travel (eco-tourism) being promoted in several areas.

The director agreed to offer the program to our students at cost, with the stipulation that our students’ payments be used to support a pre-determined number of Costa Rican students in exchange. Because the cost of living in San Diego would be prohibitive to many Costa Rican students, the exchange agreement would have to include a monthly stipend to cover tuition, room and board. However, these amounts are included when the exchange ratio is calculated.

CATIE (Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion & Enseñanza) - Turrialba

I met with the Economics Department faculty about internship placement for SDSU students in CATIE’s ongoing investigations of sustainable development in developing nations. We also met with the director of development in order to discuss creating a formal proposal for our student internship program, so that we could send groups of students annually once the formal agreement is in place.

CATIE shares quarters with the World Wildlife Fund, and works primarily on projects funded by the World Bank and U.S. AID, preparing Master’s candidates to initiate or work on existing sustainable development projects throughout Central America. This particular internship program would probably not be an exchange program, since the primary focus would be to send SDSU students to Turrialba. Their participation would be as part of CATIE’s new CeCoEco, a Center for Ecological Commerce or “eco-business.” Our students’ role would be to work on various market research and marketing planning projects to enhance product placement of eco-products from Central America into North American and European markets. The faculty and administration at CATIE are particularly interested in our students’ abilities to conduct market research and create marketing plans via the internet.

The administration of CATIE is willing to arrange inexpensive housing ($200/month) for our students, either on or off-campus. Students from the Economics graduate program could have access to coursework in economics at CATIE, while undergraduates could study at the UCR in San Jose for a semester before going to Turrialba, if they wanted to take classes. Otherwise, the faculty at CATIE would like our students to have a short course in the marketing of eco-products before arriving at the CeCoEco – a class that could be arranged either through SDSU’s Extended Studies or at UCR.

Chamber of Commerceof Costa Rica

The Director in San Jose is willing to provide internships while our students are affiliated with programs at either UCR or TEC.

American Chamber of Commerce (cooperating with the U.S. Embassy)

Again, in cooperation with either UCR or TEC, the American Chamber (AmCham) would like to sponser one intern each semester. Internships with AmCham will place SDSU students at the heart of all projects that involve Central American businesses with the United States.

Intercultura of Costa Rica - Heredia

The Director provided information on a very affordable Spanish language program with options for internships, though this program is probably for students that do not have a strong background in Spanish and who are looking for a cultural, rather than a business-type of internship experience.

V. Conclusions and Recommendations: Since returning, I have met with the administrators of CIBER to gather feedback and explore the possibility of promoting these internship possibilities for IB majors. In this same regard, I have also met with the graduate advisor in Economics and other Economics faculty to look for either joint research possibilities or internship possibilities for Economics graduate students at CATIE. I have also communicated with Dr. Ganster and Dr. Hugo Murillo about moving forward on some of the exchange agreements. All parties at SDSU have been enthusiastic about the possibilities, and I will also present these results to the IP Council at an up-coming meeting.

I have presented the possibility of Costa Rican internships at several meetings with students in my internship courses, and to date I have a list of 35 students who have stated a strong interest in going to Costa Rica to do an internship either in the summer of 2002, or in 2002-2003. Slightly less than half of these students want to study for one semester and then do their internship, as opposed to just going for a 4 month internship experience.

At this time, I am in communication with representatives from all three universities to formalize the agreements outlined above. I am sending information on our majors’ coursework in Spanish, continuing to work our details so that we can start sending a few students as early as summer of 2001. Clearly, the internship programs must be developed in conjunction with the exchange agreements that are being developed between SDSU and TEC by SDSU’s International Programs Office, but the agreement with CATIE will be simpler since it involves sending upaid teams of interns to work at the CeCEco in Turrialba. I also met recently with the Director of International Programs from TEC, who was in San Diego, so that we could proceed further on the details of the internship opportunities through her institution.

V. Additional Information: After the successful discussions I entered into in Costa Rica, I would like to continue to develop program at key campuses where our students will go on exchange in other nations. I am currently working with CIBER to delineate means of funding such programs in the future, and staffing an Internship Abroad office on our campus to manage such a program. Ideally, internships could be offered through exchanges for many majors if this type of exchange proves to be a viable and successful educational experience for our students and also exchange students.

Addendum: Email list of contacts

Camara de Comercia de Costa Rica (Chamber of Commerce)

Eugenio Pignataro Pacheco, Director Ejecutivo

director@camara-comercio.com

Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigavion y Enseñanza (CATIE)

Dr. Eliécer Vargas Ortega, Profesor Investigador Asociado

evargas@catie.ac.cr

Gabriel Roberto Robles Valle, M.Sc., Jefe Area de Capacitacion

grobles@catie.ac.cr

Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM)

Lynda Solar, Executive Director

Sandra Fraga, Executive Assistant Director