Beyond The Classroom -- Trip To Israel 2008
City of Ceasarea
International Marketing course gives Asper students global perspective
These Asper students are really going places! For students in the summer section of MKT3300 International Marketing, the opportunity to travel to Israel while learning the principles of marketing from a global perspective is a once-in-a–lifetime experience. These students will be in Israel from mid-May to mid-June to develop a closer understanding of the common marketing challenges that face professionals in Canada and Israel. But it’s not all work! There’ll be plenty of opportunity to explore the many fascinating sights and sounds of their host country, too.
And you’re invited: Follow along with these Asper students, as they take learning beyond the classroom. Jonathan Epp, a 4th year student majoring in Small Business, will be highlighting some of his personal experiences via emails and photographs.
Photos from Israel:
Friday, Saturday, Sunday - June 6th, 7th, & 8th, 2008
Spent the entire weekend in Eilat. This place is unbelievably hot. The wind here is like what comes out of an exhaust pipe of a car... but clean. During the day it hit plus 42 C, and at night it went down to around plus 30 C. The air conditioning in our hostel rooms were not adequate for this temperature, at least in my rooms. Located on the Red Sea, Eilat is like a little paradise. We went to an underwater aquarium that is surrounded by a coral reef. The view was incredible. Lots of swimming, and lots of fun at night...
Thursday - June 5th, 2008
We had another company visit. This one was to Israeli Aerospace Industries. Extremely interesting to say the least. We got to meet the CEO of the company who has had a remarkable career in all sorts of different areas. This place has essentially two divisions: a commercial division, and a military division. They took us into all sorts of areas in the company, including their satellite control room where they showed us shots taken from their satellites up in orbit, and a room (more like a very clean warehouse) where they build the satellites, or at least parts of the satellites. They made us where white smocks, coverings on our shoes, as well as hair nets. And of course cameras were not permitted anywhere. After this, they took us to a warehouse where they hold all their UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle's). They are leaders in this technology and had all sorts of planes that could do all sorts of things for their clients. The building was pretty much a showcase for clients so everything was clean and we could see all the insides of these many different kinds of aircraft. Prices ranged from a modest $500,000 to $20 million, depending on what you wanted to accomplish. After this, we headed to their commercial division where they had teamed up with Gulf Stream to build personal aircraft. It was really neat to walk through because in the beginning of our walk there were just bits of plane lying around, and as we got closer to the end we could see planes starting to take shape. By the time we got to the end, we pretty much got to see an entire plane assembled.
This tour was really incredible to see! The company is government owned and does over $3 billion in sales. All the money is re-invested into the company. The CEO gave us an idea of how things worked and how they reach foreign markets. He also gave us a little bit of history of the company and how the U.S. impacts it's decisions. Needless to say, this was an amazing experience.
After the tour, 14 of us left for Eilat, the southern most tip of Israel. 2 went to Tel Aviv and our amazing prof., Sergio, went to Jerusalem.
Wednesday - June 4th, 2008
Classes all day. We have been doing this Country Manager program as part of our course. We make decisions on how to position a company's products in foreign markets, in this case our products are toothpaste. It includes all sorts of variables that we have to decide on including advertising, distribution, pricing, what range of products, etc. The 16 of us have been broken up into 4 groups of 4 and there is sort of a competition between all of us to be the best. At first it seemed kind of neat to do, but now I find it very exciting to see how our products will change in certain markets, and to see them grow and become profitable. The 4 groups aren't competing directly with each other, but there is still competition to be the most successful group.
Tuesday - June 3rd, 2008
Today has been a real treat! We went on a company tour of Netafim, the creators of Drip Irrigation. Remarkable! They have managed to essentially grow plant life and agriculture in the desert through an ingenious way of watering plant life. The way they do it is by watering the plant itself through drips of water, rather than flooding the ground with water. The company, started back in the 60's, is actually run by a Kibbutz. They are now a huge global company with 12 manufacturing plants around the world. To see crops being grown in the desert was really unbelievable.
Monday - June 2nd, 2008
First exam.
Sunday - June 1st, 2008
Classes resume. Sergio is pushing us hard for the test tomorrow. Oh ya, we celebrated Rory Bloomfield's 21st b-day.
Saturday - May 31st, 2008
Day off.
Thursday and Friday - May 29th & 30th, 2008
We left for Jerusalem today. The city is gorgeous! We went to the old city of Jerusalem, essentially downtown, and saw all the sites: The Garden Tomb where many believe Christ was crucified and then buried. The garden was spectacular and it was a little surreal going into the tomb itself. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was stunning as well. This is the other spot where they believe that Jesus was crucified. And, of course, we went to the Western wall: the wall that is apparently the only thing left of the temple from about 1500 - 2000 years ago. Oh ya, prior to all of this we went to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum. This is an entire mountain dedicated to the museum. Emotions were running high after walking through and at the end we came to a spot where they had records of 3 million Jews. It was tense.
Friday was awesome. We got up early and went to the Mount of Olives. From here you get an amazing view of Jerusalem and can see pretty much everything. It was a postcard picture moment. We also went to the Garden of Gethsemane where they have olive trees that may actually be from the days of Christ. They were super gnarly and old looking.
Wednesday - May 28th, 2008
Left for Tel Aviv early in the morning to visit one of the offices of our donor. It was 28 floors up and we got the most spectacular view of the city from there. The man we met with told us all about the political situation that is going on here in Israel. We learnt a lot about what is going on within Israel and how their political system works.
Monday and Tuesday - May 26th & 27th, 2008
Classes started. Long days, classes running from about 9:30 to 4:30. Learning about International Marketing in Israel is very interesting. Just from what we have seen around the country we are able to apply a lot to the class.
On the 27th we got a tour of Beer Sheva. The city reminds me a lot of Winnipeg...
Sunday - May 25th, 2008
Left for Ben Gurion University of the Negev. As suspected, it is even hotter here. Turns out, the massive amount of sunshine I received from the previous day has finally taken its effect. Heat stroke has set in. However, given my awful state and loathing of the boiling hot sun, I still felt the need to hang out with everyone, and for dinner, joined them at a fantastic little pub just down the street from the dorms. The University is very beautiful and reminds me a lot of U of M. Classes start tomorrow, and I look forward to a long agonizing night of trying to sleep with a fried back. And by the way....there is no air conditioning.
Saturday - May 24th, 2008
Today we left the Sea of Galilee to go to a place called Beit Shean. This place was another site of Roman ruins. The highlight here was climbing a small mountain (well maybe it was a hill) to get a stunning view of the valley around us. We were told that at the top of this hill, where there were also ruins, was where Ramses II had built a house. From Beit Shean, we were taken to a gorgeous spring that was naturally heated year-round to a cool 28-degrees. This was much better than the previous day’s spring, which was essentially a hot tub, in that it actually cooled us off. After spending 2 hours in the water, and successfully burning my head, all of my back, a little bit of the face, some arm, and probably my ears, we went to McDonald's. Big Mac's taste the same out here. We then got on board the bus and headed back to Tel Aviv for the night. Some friends and I chilled out on the beach and enjoyed the cool breeze till late in the evening.
Friday - May 23rd, 2008
We did not do too much today. Went to the zoo, saw some alligators and crocodiles. There was a hot spring we went to. The weather was plus 30 and so was the hot spring. Not much fun, but cool because it was naturally heated from the earth. From there we went to the Jordan River, and yes, I did swim in that as well. Very beautiful. After the Jordan, we went to the city of Tiberius, where I got to finally swim in the Sea of Galilee.
Thursday - May 22nd, 2008
From our hotel we went straight to Nazareth. We went to the church of the Enunciation, which they suspect is the place the Angel Gabriel came down and told Mary about her pregnancy. They had a cave from that period still intact, which was very surreal. Being in Nazareth was pretty cool and the idea that Jesus walked in that area was quite a thought. From Nazareth we headed for the Sea Of Galilee. This has been by far the most beautiful and meaningful part of the trip. We went to a museum that had a boat from 2000 years ago. They found it in the mud in the Sea of Galilee during a drought in the 1980's and managed to excavate it without it disintegrating. After that we went to another church further north and from there we went on a Jeep tour of the Golan Heights just north of the Sea of Galilee. The tour was amazing, they took us through all these back roads, which was definitely off-roading, and we learnt a lot about the history there. One highlight was swimming in the Kaqui River, the second largest river feeding the Sea of Galilee (the biggest being the Jordan). After this we went to our hotel, which is located in a Kibbutz, a sort of self-sustaining community. This place, which we are also staying in tonight, is the most beautiful place ever since it is right on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. No words can possibly describe the beauty here. You simply have to see it.
Wednesday - May 21st, 2008
Left Tel Aviv and drove up to the west coast. We stopped in Cesarea, which is a little town on the Mediterranean. There were many Roman ruins there, which made it feel actually a lot like Rome. It was beautiful. We kept driving up and stopped next in Haifa, a stunning city on Mount Carmel. We drove to the top of Mount Carmel where the Ba'hai Gardens are. These gardens were immaculate and they had very strict dress code restrictions for those entering. The view from Mount Carmel was unbelievable, and on a non-hazy day (it was hazy) we were told you could see the border of Lebanon. From Haifa we went to a city called Acre (Akko in Hebrew). This was another port along the Mediterranean with many more Roman ruins. From there we went right to the North-western corner of Israel, right to the Lebanese border, a place called Rosh Ha'Nikra. Of all the amazing views of the Mediterranean sea, this was the most spectacular. We were high up on a hill and almost surrounded by the beautiful blue water. We walked up to the border, which was well protected. This finished our day and we went to a hotel in a very small village call Nes Amim (I think that’s what it was called, the names here are very hard to remember). The entire hotel was run by volunteers from Germany.
Tuesday - May 20th, 2008
Landed in Tel Aviv.
