Hi! My name is Alina McMahon and I am very excited to begin the Plus3 journey in Ecuador in less than three weeks! I’m a freshman in the College of Business Administration and my intended major is marketing. I’m also minoring in film studies, and recently was accepted to the certificate program in leadership and ethics which I’m super excited about. I’m also a part of the PR committee for American Marketing Association here at Pitt, and am currently a member of Women In Business, too. I’m from Richmond, Virginia, so pretty far away from Pittsburgh. One of the contributing reasons I picked Pitt, actually, was because of the giant amount of study abroad options, including shorter term ones like this one.

Outside of school, I really enjoy photography and watching movies. I’m bringing my film camera with me to Ecuador, and that’s one part I’m most excited for! I took film photos on my family’s trip to Hawaii last summer and they were great, so I can only imagine how awesome pictures from within a rainforest or near hot springs will look. The schedule for the trip appears to be jam-packed, so I’ll have to squeeze in my movie watching time during the plane rides. All my life and throughout high school I played Lacrosse. The only job I’ve ever had was at a youth sports company called i9 Sports, I worked there from my Junior year of high school until now. I have a background in childcare because of this, and after I get back from Ecuador I’ll be working at the YMCA in a day camp for the rest of my summer.

I’m super excited to go abroad, especially to Ecuador since I haven’t ever been to South America. I think that the experience in the description for the trip seems super culturally immersive, and that’s what I think will be the most beneficial part about the entire experience. I think it’ll be really awesome to learn the supply chain side of the business, since it seems pretty common to pair marketing with another major in supply chain. I already have a pretty good idea of what marketing and the industry entails, but supply chain and that entire side of the process is totally foreign to me, so I think being educated on that will be one of the more useful academic/career focused parts of this specific trip. As I said before, though, the reason I’m most excited for Ecuador, specifically, is the aspect of cultural immersion that appeals most to me. We have been told we’ll be staying in one of the coolest looking hotels I’ve ever seen right in the capital of the city, and then in a lodge with locals, as well as spending some nights at the Andes Field School which looks incredible! I love the level of activity that is promised for the program, I’ll definitely be going home very tired, but full of new memories and experiences.

Professionally, I am super excited to experience such an in-depth study of two industries that have played such a giant and crucial role in developing an entire country’s economy. Already, just in the few pre-departure meetings we have had throughout this semester, I have learned more than I ever could’ve imagined there was to know about things I think of as pretty simple and everyday. I love candy, I eat chocolate all the time, but never before have I really thought about the logistics of it getting to me, the differences in the actual percentages of cocoa (and other random chemicals) in what I’m eating. This trip is introducing a new perspective for me already, and we haven’t even left the country yet!