Introductory Blog Post
By: Colton Heine
Hello! I’m Colton Heine and this year I am a part of the Global Scholars Program at Florida State University. I am currently a freshman looking into a bachelors in Criminology or Cyber-Criminology with a minor in Mathematics. To me, being a global scholar is the structured approach to experiencing another part of the world. It moves me to find a foreign community to engage myself in, and learn something about them and even myself. Alongside that, the structure as a whole allows me to develop better research skills as a whole. I am excited to broaden my own worldview while helping others in a place, and my country of choice is Brazil. Over this summer (June and July), I will be interning for a local Tampa company that will be working in Rio de Janeiro this summer.
I have proposed this internship from the ground up, and will be their liaison into community engagement and volunteering within Rio. My goal is to study how the employees of this company shift their own perspectives in a foreign setting through participating in my proposed experiences. I am looking forward to engaging both myself and others in a local culture that is not similar to our own, and viewing Rio from a lens that is not just the tourist traps and structured setting they want you to see.
I chose to apply to this internship for my international experience because I believe the study I conduct could be applied to others whose company follows a similar structure, or even tourists in general. People could learn about how engaging in local communities in a safe way provides for an experience that you may never know about otherwise, as you learn new cultures and traditions.
The specific study I am conducting centers around the question: In what ways does participating in local community or volunteering projects during an international “work-from-abroad” program alter the professional identity and social-impact awareness of investment firm employees? Each participant will take a survey prior to, indirectly observed throughout, and interviewed after each outing related to community involvement. Through preliminary anonymous surveys, I seek to understand participants’ views and willingness on the subject of connection with foreign locals in general, and then more specifically to the individual experience.
For my own experience, since the internship I am conducting is with a company from my own community, I plan to engage myself within the local area through planning the structured experiences. I will be utilizing a local translator and reach out personally to different people that are “off the beaten path”, but still conduct the research to make sure they are safe and credible. I will also be interviewing those that the company allows me to participate in, gaining a larger perspective into their perspective on those who travel and engage in communities.
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