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Thunderbirds viewed from across the worldA group of Thunderbird students closed the New York Stock Exchange Jan. 8 during their Winterim on Wall Street. Professor John Mathis led the group to New York City Jan. 3-15 for the Winterim, while other students and professors made similar treks all over the world.

The Wall Street Winterim was just one of more than 12 experiential learning offerings that took 311 students in the full-time MBA program to nine global destinations during January that took them to Costa Rica, Switzerland, China, Dubai, Egypt, Jordan, South Africa, Mexico and the United States. Marketing, global brands, financial services, marketing analysis, export/import management, sustainable business development, emerging markets, entrepreneurial leadership and language immersion were among the topics studied.

“Actually being on the trading floor and participating in ringing the bell for the close of day is something I will never forget,” says Bonnie-Jeane Lynes ’08, who attended the Winterim. “Being able to ask questions of the Vice president of the U.S. Trust, or the CEO of Contigroup, or a trader and many other employees at Goldman Sachs – you just can not get that in the typical classroom experience.”

The students who traveled to New York City were introduced to more than 65 speakers and more than four dozen financial service providers. They also gained hands-on experience working with structured products, LBOs, IPOs, Mergers & Acquisitions, private equity transactions, private wealth management, foreign exchange and commodities trading and hedging.

“Prior to the Winterim, I had my eyes on investment banking and private equity,” says VJ Jain ’08, a native of India who is interested in a career-switch from accounting. “After interactions with speakers, I realized I would be better off doing private wealth management or equity research in emerging markets. This program cleared the haze about my career path.”

Students who attended Thunderbird’s Sustainable Business Development - Costa Rica Winterim had a rather different experience than those on the streets of New York. Theirs included field excursions to coffee farms, rainforests and bio-prospecting organizations.

“As part of this program, students calculated the carbon emissions associated with their travel to determine their climate impact,” explains Dr. Gregory Unruh, a Thunderbird professor and director of The Lincoln Center for Ethics in Global Management, who directed the trip.

To help erase their carbon impact, the group participated in a reforestation project in Costa Rica. “We planted enough trees to offset all our emissions for the Costa Rica Winterim and probably most of the emissions generated by the other Winterims as well,” adds Unruh. He’s currently working on greening strategies for Thunderbird that will lead to a carbon-free degree and hopes the principles behind the Costa Rica pilot project will serve as a model for students participating in other travel-related events.

Students on the Costa Rica Winterim had the opportunity to visit INBio Park and La Selva Bioprospecting Reserve, learning about ecotourism, rainforest preservation, and bioprospecting, which involves the search for new chemicals in living things that could provide medical or commercial benefits. The Winterim is offered jointly by Thunderbird and INCAE, the leading Latin American business school.

“I think the biggest take-away for students is that they understand the complex, systemic nature of sustainability and the challenges of creating not just a sustainable business, but a sustainable economy,” says Unruh. “They’ve taken home concepts, tools and solid examples they can apply in their own business lives.”