By Andy Owens
Managing Editor

Kristen Munn plans to see the world after graduating from college. But the Fort Dorchester High School 10th-grader isn’t looking forward to a senior trip. She’s planning a career in international business, marketing and sales.

“Everyone wants to travel abroad when they get out of school,” she said. “Why not have a job when you go there?”

That kind of thinking goes a long way in Gerald Taylor’s globalMarkets classes at Fort Dorchester.

The elective course developed by the South Carolina World Trade Center as part of its mission to educate and expose students to international trade has been offered at the school for several years. When it started, eight students signed up. Now Taylor teaches more than 50 students in two sections, and globalMarkets has been added to the school’s business major.

“The students like it,” Taylor said during a Cultural Night held recently at the school near Summerville. “At first it’s a little tough, then toward the end they say ‘OK, now I see how I can make some money.’”

By immersing students in the world of international trade, the globalMarkets course exposes them to a career area that many might not have considered even though they live near one of the busiest ports in the United States, Taylor said.

“We never hear about those jobs even with the port so close to us,” he said.

Marketing markets

It’s unclear how the financial struggles at the S.C. World Trade Center might affect the development of the globalMarkets course. State lawmakers have proposed cutting all state funding for the nonprofit organization, which has struggled with fundraising for a number of years.

The online, interactive curriculum that includes hands-on project work in the classroom has been added to the S.C. Virtual School course offerings. Currently, nine high schools across South Carolina offer the course and more are expected to be added as compatibility issues are worked out.

The S.C. World Trade Center hopes to market the course to more schools and possibly sell licenses to trade centers in other parts of the world. In addition to providing a new revenue stream, the marketing move could give the center the ability to keep updating and enhancing the course materials.

Bob Couch, the director of Career and Technology Education at the S.C. Department of Education, said the globalMarkets curriculum helps students see the global and local connections between themselves and the rest of the world.

“If you look at the focus right now with the Port of Charleston, Dubai, Orangeburg, I think it certainly provides students the opportunity to connect to a global world,” he said. “Obviously with the World Trade Center and their partners, intellectually, I think it contributes a great deal to the success of the program.”

Couch’s 16-year-old grandson is moving toward a career in international trade after traveling overseas with his father, who serves with NATO. That exposure to other countries can’t help but influence any young person’s career choices, Couch said.

“It exposes them to this international connection. It also enables students to realize there is a commonality among students all over the world,” Couch said. “I think we close the gap considerably in terms of technology and exposure.”

Jackie Adamson, the chair-elect of the S.C. World Trade Center’s board of directors, said when she visits classes participating in the globalMarkets curriculum, she’s always struck by how the program engages students. They want to hear what someone involved in international trade has to say about doing business globally.

“It opens a door they never knew existed,” she said. “Young people pick something off a counter in a store, and they have no concept of what it took to get it on that shelf and the impact it has on their daily life. It’s definitely an awareness.”

That awareness can give students an edge even if they don’t end up importing or exporting goods across the world, Couch said.

“There’s no field you’re going to go into that’s not going to be impacted by this global world,” he said. “Whether it be law or journalism or engineering, you’re going to be impacted by the world competitive environment and global markets. The value of the awareness is critically important across all areas of study.”

Thinking globally

With the prominence of foreign investment adding to South Carolina’s economy, schools and technology have become a vital bridge in linking the state to high-end manufacturers and future innovation through education, Couch said.

For three years, students have gone from South Carolina to Germany to complete high school and serve in apprenticeship programs with such companies as Mercedes-Benz and Avon Automotive. The participating students were very comfortable and well-prepared, Couch said.

“We can compete despite what we sometimes read in the paper,” he said.

Both Munn and Zach Norris, another of Taylor’s students at Fort Dorchester, are taking the second-year course of globalMarkets. Both plan to travel and work and then bring their experience back to the Charleston area to go into business.

Munn hopes to start her career by entering the banking industry while Norris plans to join the Navy and attend officers’ training school after graduating from The Citadel. He said he’s learned a lot about other countries in the globalMarkets classes, which could help prepare him for a career in the U.S. military.

He’s like a lot of the students in Taylor’s classes when he talks about graduating. It’s one step in a more thoughtful future.

“I plan on getting experience in other countries and then coming back and using it,” Norris said.

Andy Owens is managing editor of the Business Journal. E-mail him at aowens@scbiznews.com.

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