Today was so much fun! We traveled to the finance district and saw the docks with Dr. Kelly and he talked about the evolution of Ireland throughout history. Ireland is an old place but a new country and there’s a lot to learn about its history. The “two Irelands” that he spoke about were incredibly interesting and offered a great insight on the psychological effects from the famine and the house market crash. After our tour we went to our site visit at Thinkhouse. Thinkhouse is a marketing agency with headquarters in Dublin and an office in the UK. They were so much fun and very informative about what they do and emphasized how passionate they are were. This made me excited about my future as I want to hopefully get a job for an independent marketing agency just like Thinkhouse.

One of my favorite parts of the day was when Dr. Kelly discussed the differences between high context and low context cultures. We discussed this topic in previous meetings before, but it was interesting to hear him directly talk about the Irish people and how they see themselves in comparison to other cultures including ours. He used many examples and including all of us in them which was really fun. He explained this in an example of how cooks are trained and assigned to make dishes and follow the recipe/rules. Dr. Kelly said that Americans and other cultures are ones who moreso followed the recipe perfectly while the Irish make something more elaborate and take the risks for a higher grade (greater risk and higher reward). This made me think back to the time earlier on our trip where Microsoft talked about how they encourage their employees to make mistakes. I thought that was interesting because failure and mistakes is where you learn the most, and the Irish have learned so much through history when developing their country. The modernization and growth of this country was sudden and quite inspiring to see. The story of Dr. Kelly’s life here was so interesting and yet he said everyone during his generation experienced the same. He said that today, his kids and the newer generations will never understand the past and never have to experience it. Moreover, he explained how odd it is to live through the rapid modernization because the United States has took much longer and experienced a true industrial revolution.

One thing I learned that I’d never thought about is how the characteristics of the people of Ireland have benefited their jobs. Dr. Kelly characterized them as mediators, those who are middlemen and try to bring peace and build relationships. This allows them to grow through companies and become CEOs while everyone else is from other countries working below them in Ireland, but also other places as well.