Anticipation - by Emily

Only one more day until I leave for Poland, and I can’t wait to see Krakow again. This will be my second trip to Poland, but I am confident it will be extremely different than my first trip. I took my first trip in 2007, it was a cultural exchange where I taught English to Polish students through a program sponsored by UNESCO, The Kosciuszko Foundation, and The Polish Ministry of Education. Given the fact that this trip was 9 years ago when I was 17, I am looking forward to seeing beautiful Krakow again and looking at the country and culture from a different perspective. My last visit was all about understanding Polish culture and customs. While my grandmother and mother would always gladly tell me all about Polish traditions, there is only so much you can learn without actually going to see a country for yourself.

This trip will certainly provide cultural learning experiences, but I am eager to focus in on Poland's current economic status and economic history. Learning even more about Poland’s economic state from professors at the Jagiellonian University will help me to better understand the media and technology sector when we go on several company visits later in the week. During the three class sessions leading up to the trip, we discussed Polish history, the political environment, and the current economic situation in relation to the country as a whole, and the media industry in particular. With this new knowledge in mind, I will be more aware of the consumer environment and media habits I observe while in Krakow.

Above all else (besides eating a lot of wonderful food), I am looking forward to going on several company visits. It seems these are companies with very diverse business models and different work environments. It will be especially interesting to compare and contrast the atmosphere of the office at the well-established Catholic print magazine with the atmosphere of the tech start-up. I will be posting again about my reflections on our visit to the Catholic publication’s headquarters.