The writing is on the wall, and tucked into every nook and cranny at the UO Study Abroad Department.Student interest in Asia, and specifcally China, is growing.Our numbers for the last five years in China have doubled,says Cari Vanderkar Moore, UO Study Abroad Program Director.Forty-three percent of UO students who went to Asia last year, went to China.That's up from two percent 10 years ago, she said.Vanderkar Moore says students are reali
zing they need to prepare to compete in a global econony, one in which new languages and ways of doing business are crucial.UO Japanese major Mikaela Corney is one of them.At first I wasn't so much interested in business, but as I'm starting to look for jobs, because I'm getting closer and closer to graduation, I'm realizing it's becoming more and more, 'these are my options,she said.The options have become much more available to UO business students, thanks in part to the UO's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center.Director Paul Swangart started a partnership with a Chinese university six years ago, in preparation for the Bejing Olympics.It was such an obvious market for our students to pay attention to,said Swangard.
It's a market his students quickly latched on to.They've had an epiphany in their head that they need to think more broadly, he said.Swangard says 150 of his students have since gone to China, and some now live and work there.Now we're not just meeting with Chinese sports companies, but we're meeting with Nike on the product side and we're meeting with the NFL, with Major League Baseball, with the NBA, and it's really the gold rush for our industry,he said.Swangard says the program has also paved the way for those in sustainable business, innovation, and finance.
We're building a really phenomenal ecosystem.This week, the Dean of the UO Lundquist College of Business is heading to Singapore and Hong Kong.Cornelis A. Kees de Kluyver says he will be meeting with university and business leaders. He hopes to open more doors for students in other business majors.His next goal is to start working with Brazil.Though Asian countries are gaining the most interest from UO and OSU students, Vanderkar Moore says Sub-Saharan Africa is also become more popular, because it's a developing area.She and the director of the Office of International Degree and Education Abroad at OSU say there are opportunities with infrastructure and sustainable living.Plus, more faculty are doing research over there, so students are following to do internships.Last year, 16 OSU students did internships in African or Asian countries, while only eight went to Europe.But Swagard and Vanderkar Moore says language is still the biggest barrier for students choosing to study in these countries. Despite growing interest in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of UO and OSU students still choose Western European countries.
