Hello everyone! My name is Shannon Wischerath and I am currently finishing my freshman year at the University of Pittsburgh. I am in the College of Business Administration with an undecided major, but leaning towards Accounting and possibly Business Information Systems as well. This past year I joined Women in Business. This club gave me the opportunity to meet others in the business school as well as begin to understand what the business world and school is all about.

I am from Buffalo, New York–go Bills!–and I have two younger siblings, with my sister graduating high school and my brother soon to be a sophomore. I have always loved to travel. When I was growing up, I was fortunate enough to be able to travel throughout the country from South Carolina and Florida to Arizona and Wyoming and Washington as well as spending all my summers in Canada. However, through my high school, I had the opportunity to travel abroad to Europe twice. Junior year I went to England, Scotland, and Ireland while senior year I travelled to Italy. Both these trips abroad made me realize how much I love to travel. I knew that when I went to college, I wanted as many possibilities to travel abroad as possible, so Pitt really jumped out to me, especially when I learned of the Plus3 Program, which was available right after freshman year.

When I learned that Argentina was going to be a new location for Plus3, I immediately knew I wanted to go on this trip. I like the fact that we are the first Pitt Plus3 group to have the chance to go to Argentina. We are the guinea pigs for this location so we can tell our own stories about how it all goes to anyone younger than us figuring out where they want to go on Plus3. Not only have I never been to South America, but the healthcare industry also interests me. Since I am mostly undecided in my major, the opportunity to dive into first hand experience in the healthcare industry, a possible future for me, was one opportunity I knew I couldn’t pass up. Therefore, I hope to learn more about the healthcare industry, especially one in a different continent from ours. Also, I am excited to make site visits to hospitals and other healthcare centers in the area as I have never been on a site visit before. It would be cool for me to have my first site visit be abroad! Additionally, I am excited to visit both the Astral Pilar campus as well as the Astral Downtown campus to learn as well as just observing and seeing what a university in another country is like. Finally, I am excited to experience the culture first hand. I took Spanish throughout middle school and high school, so I am anxious to see how much I remember and how much I can communicate with the locals. Similarly, I am very excited and ready to eat all the authentic food Buenos Aires has to offer! I want to dive right into the culture and experience everything it has to offer.

I know that every day of the two weeks we are in Buenos Aires will be unforgettable. It’s going to be the perfect way to end such a great first year here at Pitt! Fourteen days until departure!! (but who’s counting right?)