The Community at IBHS by Michelle Heinze
Being part of the International Business Honor Society has contributed tremendously to making my first semester at FIU an incredible experience.
I am from Germany and moved to the United States to start my studies here at Florida International University this fall. Moving to a different continent can be overwhelming at times; what I struggled with the most was the fact that many people here in Miami instead of English rather speak Spanish, which I am not able to understand or speak.
A few days into the semester I came across one of IBHS’s Instagram posts advertising their first meeting of the semester, I wanted to give it a shot but my expectations were quite low if I am honest.
So when I went to my first meeting, I was absolutely thrilled to meet so many like-minded people, communication was not a problem at all and their plans for this semester sounded great; my expectations were absolutely exceeded!
This semester we went to the beach together and had amazing opportunities like going to a Miami Heats game or paying the Halloween Horror Nights in Orland a visit together. Besides all these fun things, we had amazing guest speakers, which actually were a lot of fun, too!
That is another thing about IBHS that I absolutely love, I enjoy it so much to learn about different companies and what they have to offer. To hear from FIU alumni about what they are doing, where they ended up, what detours it might have taken on the way there and what advice they have for us. Before I didn’t know how fun it was to learn about and prepare for your career.
What I love most about being part of IBHS is the feeling of community; we always laugh together, you meet people with similar interests and I know if I ever needed someone to talk to I could immediately go to any of them and they would make me feel heard, which I believe is something very special.
While before my first meeting I thought I would have to force myself to go there, now I look forward to every week’s General Body meeting! To me, it is the little things and the community that make IBHS so special.