The Global Fellows Program is a nine-month leadership program at Santa Clara University open to sophomores and juniors. Hosted and funded by the Leavey School of Business, the goal of the Global Fellows Program is to foster global citizens of competence, conscience, and compassion through an emphasis on service, academics, and leadership.
Fellows participate in a spring quarter leadership practicum that engages their knowledge of global citizenship and what it means to be a leader in the 21st century. Following spring quarter, Fellows head abroad for a 5 to 8 week internship with an NGO or business that embodies the ideals of global leadership and reflects the increasing level of globalization in our world. Fellows are the change-makers, the go-getters, the leaders of their communities. The Global Fellows Program recruits exceptional students who are engaged, contemplative, independent, compassionate, innovative, and curious. Each experience is unique, but the common thread is that through the Global Fellows program they see themselves as connected to the larger world and an integral part of the solution to global challenges.
This summer three LSB juniors Evan Chen, Eoin Lyons, and Alex Wu spent 8 weeks in Hyderabad, India to work with Franklin Templeton.
Evan shares, “The highlight of my Global Fellows experience was getting to authentically immerse myself in a culture that is very different from the US. Not only was I able to partake in local celebrations and festivities, but I was also able to experience a developing country from an American perspective. This allowed me to recognize the privileges of being an American resident and figure out how to use my abilities to best serve the citizens of India. My perception of privilege changed after coming back to the US. I remember talking to Pranit, one of Eoin’s co-workers, right before we left and thinking about how different our lives were simply because we were born in the US. After all, we were heading back to a land of immense comfort and privilege, while Pranit may never get to experience the lifestyle that we take for granted. As a result, after coming back I definitely felt more grateful to be living in a developed country and recognize that I have the responsibility to make the world a better place for others using my privilege. For Evan's complete blog post click here.
Eoin reflects that the Global Fellows program had always jumped out to him as a chance to connect personally with people of a different country and culture, and he was afraid the corporate office of Franklin Templeton wouldn’t provide that for him. After his eight-week experience in India he realized he accomplished both. He writes in his final blog, "Over my eight weeks at Franklin Templeton, I completed four major assignments: update desktop procedures, audit support, trade error analysis, and inter-account /cross transaction analysis. In addition to these, I completed a few other projects given to me by various members of the team, the non-exhaustive list including: compiling lists of internal tests to catch non-compliance issues for accounts in Brazil, creating summarization documents that characterize the roles and responsibilities of Investment Compliance, and cross-checking and developing the material non-public information list for international accounts. Over my eight weeks, I had volunteered at a local school with other FT employees, worn a traditional kurta (a gift from my coworkers) at our Indian Independence Day celebrations, went to Ramoji Film City to visit the sets of numerous Bollywood movies and watch a horrendous American Wild West show, and created a Jeopardy game for a Fun Friday event with my team. I had grown so much over the eight weeks and forged friendships with people across the globe." For Eoin's complete blog post click here.
Alex's experience made him a global thinker. He reflects in his blog, "This Global Fellows experience changed my perspective that although people are oceans apart, the world is much more connected than most think. There were many layers of western influence that I would see in India, within the realms of business, cinema, food and social status. While now in the U.S., I see how the other side of the world has influenced my world in religion, cuisine, art, engineering, and innovation. Though both sides of the world aren’t physically connected, we are connected with powerful technology that allows us to share ideas across the world. This will allow us to grow as humans. This will allow us to not completely lose touch with humans across the earth." For Alex's complete blog post click here.