Five Guilford MBA students and one undergraduate at the College traveled to South Africa this month for a nine-day study abroad program and returned home with new perspectives on their futures, and on the world.

For Evelyn McCullough ’10, the experience convinced her to try her hand at an entrepreneurial venture that makes a positive impact on the world. Dasia Washington ’24 gained a newfound respect for international students who travel halfway around the world to pursue their degrees at Guilford. All of the students say they can’t wait to go back.

Evelyn, a product and project manager who returned to Guilford last year in pursuit of an MBA, says the trip emboldened her to make changes not just at her job at a home furnishings manufacturing plant in Kernersville, N.C., but maybe in South Africa as well.

“It was such a fantastic experience to see (South Africa) from a perspective a lot of us never had the chance to do before,” she says. “It was life changing, really.”

Michael Dutch is the Seth ’40 and Hazel ’41 Macon Professor of Business Management and Director of the College’s Master of Business Administration that was launched last fall.

He says MBA students examined the infrastructure for impact investing and entrepreneurial opportunities in South Africa as part of the students’ capstone project. That included visiting several small business incubators and meeting with some of the country’s biggest entrepreneurs.

Michael says many impoverished South Africans still recovering from generations of Apartheid tend to shy away from business risks. “Perhaps people living in townships are less likely to see the opportunities that entrepreneurship may present so we want to work with organizations set up to create an awareness that there is a way out of poverty,” he says.

He says American entrepreneurs can provide more than just funding to South African small businesses. They can provide much-needed advisory support.

To do that Michael and students spent several days learning more about the culture and livelihoods of South Africans. Evelyn says the first step to working with people in any foreign culture is “understanding who they are and where they are coming from. Before you make your case on anything you need to understand where they’ve been and what they need.”

Andy Milligan ’23 MBA has made several trips to South Africa working with small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs. This trip was the best of all. “This is the only way to really learn about South Africa,” he says. You can’t just be somebody who watches from your computer screen. You have to immerse yourself. You learn from places that you walked and people that you spoke to, and sounds and smells, the whole deal. This was my most successful trip so far.”

Dasia says a successful entrepreneurial venture in South Africa can look a lot different than one in America. “It doesn’t have to always be wildly successful, bringing in a lot of wealth,” she says. “People in South Africa can look at a new start-up as successful if it just brings in enough money to feed their families.”

Dasia plans on returning to South Africa in July with leaders from the College. “Just going over there and trying to learn and understand a different culture and way of living was a challenge, but I loved it. I can’t wait to go back.”

Michael says the plan is to offer a Study Abroad for MBA students to Cape Town next year as part of a three-week course in the spring – possibly even a trip for undergraduate students to another city in South Africa.