{"id":6615,"date":"2010-02-16T14:51:04","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T18:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/?p=6615"},"modified":"2017-06-28T15:20:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T19:20:48","slug":"realities-of-dubai-surprise-fiu-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/2010\/02\/realities-of-dubai-surprise-fiu-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Realities of Dubai surprise FIU students."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Outside
Outside a mosque in Abu Dhabi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Where can you ski, dine in the desert and view the world\u2019s tallest building?<\/p>\n

Dubai, of course.<\/p>\n

For 28 students, all but four of them undergraduate business majors in the College of Business Administration at Florida International University (FIU), a ten-day study abroad program to Dubai proved to be a revelation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDubai is as diverse as Miami,\u201d said Luis Camacho<\/strong>, a senior majoring in International Business Honors and economics. \u201cEighty percent of the people come from elsewhere and seeing that diversity in the Middle East impressed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the group had ample time to view the unique cityscape of this transformed fishing village\u2014including skiing at an indoor snow slope in a mall\u2014they also had the opportunity to interact with business people. The itinerary included a visit with the senior vice chairman of Aujan Industries, the largest privately-owned beverage company in the Gulf;\u00a0 presentations at the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) and the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC); and lectures at the American University in Dubai.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left to right: Patricia Ortiz, Gloria Leon, Robert Marksmeier, Eliane Caicedo and Carla Rospigliosi following the visit with real estate development corporation Nakheel, with part of the Palm Island Tower in the background<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cExperiences like this are transformative for students,\u201d said Doreen Gooden<\/strong>, faculty leader of this study abroad program, which the FIU Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) coordinated. \u201cStudents are forced to look at themselves and gain a new balance in their lives through their exposure to different cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students assess Dubai\u2019s economy for themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

The worldwide press has amply covered the economic slowdown in what is one of the world\u2019s fastest growing cities, but to Gooden, the crisis made the visit more interesting for the students, arming them with questions for the business people they encountered.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt DIFC, we were told that the media is trying to portray a bad image of Dubai but that the country will refinance its debts, make its payments and be fine,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cHowever, we saw a lot of cranes, but not much construction and a lot of unoccupied buildings despite the presence of so many luxury hotels and malls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liza Carbajo<\/strong>, director of FIU\u2019s Office of Education Abroad, assisted on the trip, which also included class time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where can you ski, dine in the desert and view the world\u2019s tallest building? Dubai, of course. For 28 students, all but four of them undergraduate business majors in the College of Business Administration at Florida International University (FIU), a ten-day study abroad program to Dubai proved to be a revelation. \u201cDubai is as diverse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,10,13],"tags":[294,318,374,435,669,688,741,1129,1160,1601,1623,2088,2270,2508],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6615"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28598,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6615\/revisions\/28598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}