Penn Abroad Ambassador Henry McDaniel

Program:

• GRIP: Wine Production in Porto
• PGS: Colonial Cosmopolitan Encounters in Mumbai
• Global Policy Encounters (Perry World House Student Fellows Program)

Ask me about...

Although wine production has nothing to do with my coursework or major, my GRIP experience in Porto gave me invaluable soft skills such as marketing, salesmanship and cross-cultural communication. These skills will aid me in my goal of becoming a diplomat, because it displays the necessary dimensions required to effectively operate abroad. I speak Russian, and I was often responsible for greeting Russian guests who visited our winery. I developed strong relationships with my Portuguese coworkers, all of whom I continue to keep in touch with. I am glad I went on this GRIP experience, because instead of serving a preprofessional endeavor, it provided me with lifelong knowledge of wine, heritage and hospitality.

My Experience Abroad:

Of the three Penn Abroad programs I have completed, each have played a different role in my academic journey. My PGS in Mumbai and Goa allowed me to witness a place with so many rich layers of history, and to see how immigrant communities have come together to make India an economic and cultural powerhouse. This trip led me to concentrate in diplomatic history, because I wanted to explore how cultures have interacted with eachother to form the world we know today. My GRIP program in Porto allowed me to become an expert in Portuguese Wine, and allowed me to develop the soft skills necessary for a diplomatic career, including marketing, salesmanship, and cross-cultural communication. Finally, my Perry World House PGS in Geneva allowed me to dive deeply into the world of international policy making, in both government organizations and NGOs. This is a world I hope to join in my professional career, and the Geneva PGS allowed me to discover which avenue could be a right fit for me.

Other Highlights:

• Visiting the Catholic shrine at Fatima with two other members of my cohort

• Going to a Jazz bar in Madrid and running into a musician I knew while growing up in Philadelphia

• Cooking Pasta Carbonara for my Portuguese coworkers

• Seeing the fireworks at the St. John's Festival in Porto

• Assisting the CEO of my company in a wine tasting along with his potential clients