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China trip opens students' eyes to global economy

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published July 10, 2006

For Laura Tillinghast, an MBA student at USF St. Petersburg College of Business, one of the most striking things about a recent university-sponsored trip to China was the energy.

"The professors who lectured us and the businesspeople we talked with were all engaged and excited about the growth of China," said Tillinghast, 31. "You can feel free-market forces affecting people."

For Betsy Fishman, another MBA student on the China trip, the Great Wall and the Hong Kong port, with its row upon row of cranes and container ships, many headed to the United States, made the biggest impressions.

And Yasser Faiq, a 26-year-old undergraduate marketing major, was blown away by the sheer numbers: A microwave manufacturer in Guangzhou that turned out 37,000 ovens a day; a General Motors plant in Shanghai making 37 cars an hour; and thousands of factory workers making the equivalent of about 60 cents an hour.

The three were among 17 students who traveled with USF St. Petersburg associate professor of finance Todd Shank and marketing professor Tom Ainscough to China, Hong Kong and Macao, returning in mid June. While the students will receive course credits for the excursion, Tillinghast said that was not the primary benefit. As project administrator at commercial contractor Beck Group in Tampa, she got to see first-hand the building boom in China that has driven up the demand and cost of construction materials here.

Even more important, she and the rest of the next generation of business executives got an immersion in the realities of a global economy.

"The future of the world economy is globalization," Tillinghast said, "and the U.S. needs to be engaged in that."

[Last modified July 9, 2006, 21:12:22]