Quinn Ursprung
As a Vira Heinz recipient, Quinn traveled to Sydney, Australia and spent six weeks studying at the University of Sydney, as well as interning at a Professional Australian Baseball team, the Sydney Blue Sox, working as a communications and digital marketing intern. While at the University of Sydney, Quinn studied the analytics and history of social media, as well as conducting a mock advertisement, a product pitch, and a personal website for a charitable organization, in hopes to increasing their traffic to their social medias and their website. During Quinn's time with the Sydney Blue Sox, she worked under the Assistant General Manager of Sydney Blue Sox, and worked closely with the Communications and Marketing department of the Australian Baseball League (ABL). Quinn assisted in the delivery of media and public relations for Sydney Blue Sox, and Baseball New South Wales, including the delivery of digital assets; coding, database administration and the development of comprehensive social media strategy and produced content, both written and visual. During Quinn's stay, she was able to engulf herself into the Australian culture, by the help of her Australian coworkers and boss. While traveling, Quinn was able to experience Australian sport, including the Australian Football League, the Australian Baseball League and the sport of Rugby. Quinn got to experience the Great Barrier Reef, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the various beaches Sydney has to offer. Quinn, through immersion, was able to learn how to execute communication and marketing through digital media, as well as experience the Australian culture and the Australian sporting industry.
CEE Title: No Impact Too Small
Our CEE was a casual opportunity for students to become further educated about culture, by learning about a specific issue that is faced globally and locally. We had a large following from student-ran organizations that helped present that this event. For our CEE, we had a large crowd through the event, so we stood in front of the various clubs and had tables set-up to display our international experience and our various global/local issue. We then stood by our tables and allowed the students and community members to walk around to the various tables and ask us more specific questions. Each one of us decorated our tables with items from our travels. I tried to use props that would spark conversation about culture, such as pictures from my experience. I used these items to spark the interest of those walking past and to show them the beautiful Australian culture. Our CEE was formatted so that people can come and go as well as leisurely stroll through the tables and booths set-up. Mine focused on the issue of skin cancer. When I discussed Australia’s issue with skin cancer, the conversation sparked from there, and then we were able to discuss other cultural aspects and the United States’ issue with skin cancer. For our CEE, we decided to let students come and go as they pleased because at Thiel, that is something that goes over well with students. We had a decent number of students come in and out, and we had great conversations about issues and how to fix these issues on our own campus. This type of CEE was great for our campus because students wanted to talk and ask questions one-on-one with either Samantha, Tanyra, or I. This made for a comfortable setting where students were offered samples of food to get them talking about food, which is very important in most cultures. All in all, our CEE was a successful way to act locally and think globally and share that idea with our campus community.