Education
Van Wert graduate returns from project in Vietnam
  • | Times Bulletin | December 21, 2009 10:30 PM

Choosing the right college is one of the most important decisions a graduate will make as they leave high school. Not only does the choice involve their major, but the ancillary projects that arise at some universities are another reason to choose them.

That is what Heather Farr, a 2008 graduate of Van Wert High School, found out when she chose Ohio University to continue her education career. She is in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, one of the top five journalism programs across the United States. Now halfway through her sophomore year, Farr has been thrilled with her choice, not only because of her major classes, but also because of the range of resources, alumni and organisations that she has access to through the school. She has decided on a sequence, or a concentration, in the Public Relations field.

Photo submitted Heather Germann (left) and Heather Farr (right) pose during their trip to Vietnam through the Global Leadership Center’s program at Ohio University.

But that is not the extent of Farr's studies at OU. She has also decided to receive a certificate through the Global Leadership Center (GLC). A certificate program is similar to a minor in a course of study at some schools but it is more involved. The GLC is intended to give students exposure to international opportunities as well as gain experience in commercial and governmental areas that are not necessarily a part of their major.

As a part of the program, Farr just returned from a trip to Nha Trang, Vietnam where she and two other members of her GLC group worked with a Vietnamese aqua-agriculture company on a consulting project. This was a quickly growing company that had been having problems with integration between its divisions, causing the CEO to spend too much time either negotiating issues between parts of his own company or spearheading solutions to issues that had arisen because of a lack of communication.

Farr and the other two members of her team spent several weeks working on the problem of amending an organisational structure that was fairly new for the company. To understand the business better, they visited the same kind of companies in the United States.

"Together we came up with a solution to their problem," said Farr. "The really neat thing about this is that these are real companies and real problems. They actually trust us with the solutions we come up with. It's a lot of responsibility."

But the overseas study proved just as valuable for cultural learning, as well. Farr said that it was interesting to see how the Nha Trang University students they worked with were more reserved personally until they got to know them, longer than a typical American student, then they were very open. She also said that the Vietnamese people expressed a great deal of admiration for the United States, referring to it as a place where anyone can do anything if a person works hard enough.

All of the students spoke at least some English with many being very fluent. Farr remembered one young lady who if she heard a word that she did not understand, she would ask for it to be written down and then the next day she would come back with the proper pronunciation and usage.

There are two reasons why Farr chose the GLC as a certificate program for her studies. First, the Scripps School requires journalism majors to have a second specialisation. But more importantly, she looked at the opportunity to work with people from other countries as a way to prepare herself for life after college graduation. The real life experience with expressing ideas without a common reference point has already proved to be invaluable.

"I didn't think that would be hard but the communication did prove to be difficult," she said. "It was nice to get over those barriers now and understand them."

She is not the only Van Wert High School graduate to participate in Ohio University's GLC program. Heather Germann was a member of one of the nine teams that went to Vietnam to work with a company as well.

Farr's overseas learning is not done yet. It takes two years to complete the Global Leadership Center certificate program and every semester brings a new project. After the first of the year, she will be working on a micro-finance project for a Liberian company. Although this project will not involve a trip to Africa, she will still be required to perform one more study program abroad before her graduation.

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