The University of Washington, Bothell welcomes home 17 master-of-business-administration (MBA) students, who recently returned from an accredited study tour of Thailand and Cambodia.

Throughout the two-week study tour, the MBA students identified and gained a much deeper understanding of the trends, opportunities and challenges that globalization presents to governments, businesses and societies.

Program director James Reinnoldt, a UW-Bothell faculty member with 25 years business experience in Asia, says the topic of globalization is quite interesting in itself in a classroom setting, but nothing compares to real-life experience.

“The opportunity for the students to actually visit companies that are deeply involved in global business provides a whole new dimension to their learning,” Reinnoldt says.

During the trip, students made visits to and heard briefings from representatives from a variety of companies including the regional Starbucks headquarters, Wonder World Toys, a Ford-Mazda manufacturing facility, a local social media and communications agency, a seafood processing facility, an aerospace manufacturing firm, and a large industrial estate and export trade zone.

Jessica Evans, MBA student and senior account supervisor at Edelman, say globalization provides impressive opportunities to countries like Thailand and Cambodia.

“How each country is optimizing the growing manufacturing, services and tourism industries, and the global impact that those investments are having is particularly fascinating,” Evans says.