James Trombka, a Master of Business Administration student at Kent State University, recently returned from the Circular Economy in Ireland education abroad program. This yearly economics program is led by Dr. Ludmila Leontieva and focuses on sustainable practices in business.
James sat down with the Education Abroad team to discuss his experience. Learn more in his interview below.
Why did you decide to study abroad?
I was really hoping when I was doing the MBA program that there would be an opportunity to study abroad that would come up just because I love traveling, I love getting to see new places in the world, getting to kind of immerse myself in different cultures.
I travel all over the US now - I'm part of a traveling improv group, so we do comedy all over the US, but we've never really done anything international. The last time I traveled outside of the country was about 10 years ago, so I had always been on the lookout for a study abroad program.
And ironically enough, when I saw that there was a program going to Ireland, that's somewhere I have always wanted to go. I did a 6th grade research paper on Ireland - I told my teacher back then that I loved Ireland and I wanted to learn more about it, so it's kind of always had a special place in my heart that I've always wanted to travel to.
What drew you to this program academically?
I have always really liked learning about economics, learning about other businesses. The program I did was circular economics, specifically, so looking at how to make things more sustainable.
I was really excited when I heard we were going to get to meet with a lot of small businesses and startups. We were even going to be working alongside one of them to help them sustain their momentum for the future.
They were from a bunch of different industries, things from the hotel and tourism industry to cyber security to medical sustainability.
What were the course and activities like?
What was cool is we started out before we even left for Ireland. We had a few class sessions where we met to go over some of the main groundwork content (and have some delicious Irish snacks!).
A lot of the content was focused on behavioral economics, so thinking about how and why people do the things they do and how those decisions contribute to their economic decisions. We learned to look at it from a psychological, economic, and sustainable perspective.
When we traveled to Ireland, we had a mix of things: it was meeting with businesses and talking with them about sustainability, classroom sessions, and components where we were doing things that were more leisure/tourist. One of the days we went to an urban farm, and we got to hear about how they make things more sustainable, how their whole system is very eco-friendly, minimal waste.
And then one of the hotels that we stayed at in Kilkenny is a sustainable hotel. They had zero food waste; none of it gets thrown away. I got to meet with the business owners - it was neat because we got to experience it from the guest perspective, but then we got to hear some of the intentionality behind it.
During the trajectory of the course we met with a company called HaPPE Earth, which is focused on personal protective equipment (PPE) for the medical industry, specifically things like hair nets and aprons that are made out of a plastic polymer that is biodegradable. We met with them on Monday of the week, and our task was by the following Saturday to help troubleshoot an issue that they might have.
We all worked together to come up with a proposal for them; it was very hands-on, very engaging. By the end of the week, we presented our research and our ideas to HaPPE Earth, and they seemed really excited.
It was cool that we were not just doing an assignment but doing real work in the real world that is going to have an impact in the future.
What’s your favorite thing that you learned during the program?
I would say a very niche thing that we learned about is something called nudges, which is a term in marketing, advertising, and behavioral economics, where in order to change a consumer’s behavior, you implement a very slight change.
An easy example from many different countries is the installation of piano keys on outdoor staircases. When you step on a step, it plays a note like a piano would. Very simple change, but because of it, more people were shown to use the stairs as opposed to using the escalator or an elevator as it’s more fun due to the musical element.
It was a whole new framework of behavioral economics to shift and think about problems and the world in a different light.
What was it like traveling with other Kent State students and your faculty member?
Oh, it was wonderful. I feel like there's always that anxiety of wondering if everybody is going to get along, but everyone was so awesome. We all met each other at the airport in Cleveland, and we were going to meet our instructor in Dublin. And our instructor was wonderful too.
What was fun is I didn't expect to laugh as much as I did the entire week. Even if we were on a long bus ride, we all had so much fun just chatting and getting to know each other. I feel like those connections that we made are important from a career networking standpoint, of course, but even more so from a friendship standpoint.
Our instructor did a great job of balancing to make sure we didn't have too much work or were doing things every single second. She really gave us that freedom to get to know the country better, and she had such a good understanding because she's been there so many times. She had everything picked out for us. When we would go to dinner by ourselves, we would say, “What do you recommend? What is a good food place?” Every single recommendation she gave us was awesome.
What was your favorite thing you did while abroad?
We stayed in Kilkenny for half of the trip and our hotel was a street over from the castle. We got to the hotel early and our instructor told us to go explore and maybe go do the castle, so we did.
When we arrived at the castle, we were surprised to learn we would be given a private tour and our tour guide had a great sense of humor and made exploring the 900 year old building even more fun. And not to mention the castle and the grounds were breathtaking.
I also love running, and I got to run in the castle grounds a few times throughout the time that we were there, which was amazing.
How do you think this experience has impacted you personally?
It has given me a lot of life. Before the trip, I was getting a little bogged down and burnt out. The trip just helped give me a breath of fresh air in a lot of different areas of my life.
I think getting to be in another culture always does that to you. We can so easily get stuck in our own little world. We forget we have that agency to change and make different things happen in our lives.
Getting to interact with other students who are in the MBA program – I’m doing the online version of it – that face-to-face interaction was also really something special.
What advice do you have for other students considering this program?
If you think you might want to pursue it, go for it. Don't let things hold you back. If you've always wanted to travel or if you missed the opportunity to do it in undergrad, look for other opportunities. They will pop up.
With this program specifically, come with an open mind. Our instructor always said the sky is the limit and the more creative you are, the better. And she truly does mean that.
And even you know, if you're like, “I'm in a masters program. I'm in a graduate program. I feel like studying abroad is not really something that you can do” … do it. Grab those opportunities because they will not only change the way you look at the world, but they’ll change your career trajectory in the future too.