Global Perspective

Students Connect in Overseas Immersion Class

by Evan Elliot, USF News

Family Business Academic Global Immersion class

“It’s great to network with people face-to-face — on the other side of the world,” said Noah David ’26.

On a 10-day immersion in the Philippines last month, students from Monika Hudson’s Family Business Academic Global Immersion class at USF joined their counterpart students from Ateneo, a sister Jesuit university in Manila. Together, the 29 students visited five family businesses and one social enterprise, ranging from multinational companies to kitchen-table startups.

“We visited BEVI, a large beauty and skincare company, and met the founder and CEO,” said David, a business analytics major. “We also visited Habi Lifestyle, a group of women who take material scraps and upcycle them into jewelry and bags. I connected with everybody on LinkedIn.”

Brianna Ngoboc ’25, a double major in accounting and in entrepreneurship who was born and raised in the Philippines, said she wanted to “go there, ask questions, and see how different family businesses operate.”

What did she learn?

“All of the businesses said that they keep growing because they’re more focused on serving people than they are on making profits,” Ngoboc said.

Tanner Sweatman ’27, a management major, said, “I learned that hustle is strong in the Philippines. I learned that Jesuit schools help each other. I learned that people in the Philippines don’t hate Americans. And I learned that I love the Philippines so much that I might go to graduate school there.”

One of Sweatman’s favorite parts of the immersion was hearing a business pitch from a student at Ateneo, he said. “She pitched leakproof bikini swimsuit bottoms that women can wear during their periods. I know a USF graduate in New York City who works with women-owned businesses and who loves to connect with other women entrepreneurs. So I introduced them to each other.”

Sweatman said this immersion class “is the first time I’ve felt this connected to a community since I joined the Navy back in 2012. This class is bigger than I am, and it introduced me to a cause that’s bigger than I am. Before I went on this immersion, I thought ‘change the world from here’ was just a slogan. Now I believe it.”