Real-world learning, from Crypto Valley to Costa Rica
UC study abroad takes students to the forefront of global action
At a time when some question the value of a university education or wonder whether AI has made the pursuit of knowledge pointless, the University of Cincinnati offers once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for hands-on learning.
Students in two UC study abroad programs last spring traveled with their professors to see the real-world application of what they learned in two very different areas of innovation—conservation and sustainability, and cryptocurrency and blockchain technology—and met leading figures practicing and researching in those crucial fields. Whether touching grass as ecotourists in Costa Rica or scaling mountains in Switzerland, they broadened their horizons far beyond the classroom.
UC’s faculty-led study abroad model is part of the Next Lives Here promise of experience-based and career-centered learning that the University of Cincinnati offers to students in all programs. Program development funds and student scholarships are awarded by the UC International office.
Crypto Valley
“Crypto Valley is the hub of a lot of emerging blockchain technology companies and startups,” said Rocco Bortnick, a fourth-year business economics and finance major, explaining why he and 19 of his classmates from the Carl H. Lindner College of Business traveled to Switzerland last May.
Michael Jones, associate professor in the Department of Economics and academic director for the Kautz-Uible Economics Institute, led the group with Emily Brichant, senior academic advisor in the college’s Immersive & International Programs office.
"We wanted a chance for students to see how blockchain technology is being used globally. And Switzerland is very forward-thinking, innovative, leading the industry,” Jones said.
UC Lindner College of Business students at Mt. Pilatus, Switzerland
Switzerland’s balancing act of encouraging blockchain innovation while developing regulations to integrate cryptocurrencies into global financial systems has led to a concentration of crypto-related and blockchain technology companies near the town of Zug, giving rise to the region’s Silicon Valley – style nickname.
It’s a new frontier in a very traditional industry. Digital currencies and other financial assets are not secured by bank vaults or backed by national governments. Instead, they are managed through digital technology that allows their creation, storage and transfer in a decentralized virtual network. Unique and permanent cryptographic keys are generated by complex, incentivized calculations to ensure their inalterability, maintaining the blockchain ledger’s transparency and trustworthiness.
“Most money goes through a central institution, whether it’s your bank, your credit card, the Federal Reserve,” said Jones. With cryptocurrencies, “It’s peer-to-peer money. I don’t have to have those transactions go through a third party.
“Money’s just trust,” Jones said.
Money's just trust.
Michael Jones UC Lindner College of Business
Jones manages UC’s own cryptoeconomics lab in the Digital Futures building through the Kautz-Uible Economics Institute. The crypto course and its concluding study abroad allowed his students to explore best use cases for this new technology being introduced around the world. Jones gave an example.
Michael Jones greets guests to UC’s Cryptoeconomics Lab during the grand opening of UC Digital Futures | Photo: Margot Harknett
“If you don’t trust your central government, would [you] rather [put your] assets in a sort of a decentralized global cryptocurrency or in the central bank? You see adoption of cryptocurrency in those countries where you have either corrupt or incompetent central banks. … That’s how that technology is being used, really, as a store of value and as a check against incompetency and censorship at the central bank level.”
Jack Sheridan, a fourth-year international business major, said, “It’s still a big, emerging market, so I thought [this trip] would be a good opportunity to learn more about it. I'm interning at Fidelity Investments right now, and they're starting to break into that space, too, where they're allowing people to invest in crypto. So, I figured it'd be a good opportunity to learn about it.”
As the core of the study abroad program, Jones and Brichant arranged visits with industry and academic partners. Students called these visits the highlights of the trip.
One visit was at PWC Switzerland, where a presentation turned into an extended discussion between the company representatives and the highly interested students.
“Seeing how they leverage [blockchain and crypto] and their assurance and compliance and consulting operations, their tax advisory operations, in relation to serving their clients in the best way they can, providing value to the clients they serve, was very interesting to me,” said Bortnick. “It was more of an open forum discussion. You know, they really wanted to hear from us. And that dynamic really kept everyone engaged and made for a very, very nice back and forth conversation. I think that’s why I liked it so much.”
Students also visited the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in Winterthur, the ETH Zurich Quantum Center and the KOF Swiss Economic Institute research institute. And they got to enjoy some typical tourist experiences as well, including city tours, a chocolate factory visit and some mountain treks.
Ellie Scheffter, a senior majoring in operations management and insurance/risk management, called the trip “unbelievably worth it.”
“It’s an amazing experience that gives you valuable knowledge in the business world. The workforce is becoming a huge melting pot of cultures, and being able to learn about all kinds of cultures is extremely valuable for you.”
Brichant added that students also gain global connections for potential internship and career opportunities.
“It’s also about making those connections with the people that they’re meeting at the company visits and our partner universities,” she said.
A study by the Forum on Education Abroad shows a 6.3% bump in starting salary for all business students who study abroad.
Costa Rica
More than 5800 miles away, 17 students from a resource conservation course in the University of Cincinnati’s transdisciplinary School of Environment & Sustainability bridged multiple disciplines in their journey.
The students came from across UC’s campus, with majors in environmental studies, medical sciences, communications, business, health sciences, education, and environmental engineering, as well as independent studies.
UC students en route to a Bribri village in Talamanca | Photo: Sarah Austgen
They were led by Teri Jacobs, assistant professor–educator of environmental studies in the College of Arts & Sciences, who developed the course and the study abroad program. Co-lead was Susan Willis, associate professor in the Department of Biology at UC Blue Ash, which offers an associate’s degree program in environmental studies.
Why Costa Rica?
Jacob said the nation has received recognition for its groundbreaking initiatives for ecosystem conservation and for its commitment to clean technologies.
“They excel in natural resource conservation and in sustainable tourism to protect their extremely rich ecosystems and boost their economic standing. Costa Rica stands very high in multiple global rankings for its national conservation and sustainability efforts.”
In 2019, the United Nations gave the Republic of Costa Rica their flagship environmental award, Champions of the Earth, for policy leadership because of its strategic and pioneering approach to environmental stewardship and combating climate change. In 2021, it won the very first Earthshot Prize for recovering from deforestation and protecting marine reserves while managing a boom in ecotourism. The government administers an Ecological Blue Flag program to certify businesses that meet standards for sustainable tourism and socially responsible resource management.
Jacobs’ students spent the semester in class investigating resource conservation management strategies and exploring the economic, social and environmental impacts of government, institutional and individual action plans, before getting on-the-ground experience in Costa Rica. There they were able to compare a stay at a fully certified urban hotel to the grassroots efforts of smaller enterprises like coffee and cacao plantations, to the strategies of ecolodges and conservation stations.
UC students en route to a Bribri village in Talamanca | Photo: Sarah Austgen
Kyle Boland, who had returned after earning his bachelor’s in finance to take additional environmental studies courses in preparation to enter a doctoral program, was particularly interested in this multifaceted initiative.
“With my weird background of finance and environmental studies, I've been very interested in the economic side of the environment. Learning more about sustainability and how that can be realistically achieved, and how businesses and countries can profit from the environment to incentivize them to keep it safe is very important to me,” he said. “I wanted to learn more about sustainability and how their economy worked with their environment.”
Lily Webb, a fourth-year environmental studies major with a minor in environmental geology, was also a returning student to Jacobs’ class, working on a research credit project.
“I had taken the resource conservation class my freshman year. That was one of my first classes I had ever taken, and I just fell in love with the concept.”
She highlighted the group’s visit to an eco-resort and its efforts to support protecting ecological richness in the region.
“It was in the rainforest, and it was fully self-sufficient. They used hydro power from the mountains to power all of their things. They grew all of their own food. They had all of their own livestock. And it was just so amazing to see that actually in action, because we talk about those methods of like conservation and how they can be implemented,” Webb said.
“That's one thing that I really will never forget, being able to actually see the things that we learned about in class in action.”
Water from the banana harvest helps irrigate a cacao crop in Costa Rica | Photo: Susan Lewis
The group also visited the Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge and Cahuita National Park, where they went surfing and snorkeled with nurse sharks. Three students had the opportunity to do some field observations for a research project on coral reefs.
They got a chance to interact with the professors and students at the Sarapiquí campus of the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. After a lecture, they toured a cacao farm and other sites together.
“[The guide] talked about, ‘Hey, we have these bananas here where we will harvest and eat them. But also, watch this,'" Boland said. "He went over, cut off a little bit of it, pulled it out, and went, ‘Watch.’ He wringed it out, and you had so much water come out. And he said, ‘During our dry season, after the bananas die, we cut them down, and they supply water to the plants in the area. That way we don't have to irrigate. It's a natural way to absorb water in the wet season and then release it in the dry season so that we don't have to waste water.’"
Webb said she was struck by the level of everyday social acceptance of responsibility for environmental conservation in Costa Rica. She said their driver jokingly told her, “We stop for animals, not people.”
“And he told us stories, he's done it, everyone has, having to stop in the middle of the road to get a sloth to the other side. And that's just something that people just do, they don't even think about it.”
If you can get on that plane, do it.
Lily Webb UC Environmental Studies
“If you can get on that plane, do it,” said Webb about the study abroad experience. “It is so amazing to be able to get out of the country with your peers and your knowledge, and just get to actually see it firsthand, implement that knowledge that you've gained. … To actually get out and see it is so, so impactful.”
Faculty plan to offer versions of both programs again in spring 2027.
Bearcats for life
Go places as a Bearcat! Explore your global opportunities and meet with UC International advisors.
Attend in-person information sessions:
· Wednesdays at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Swift 709
Or join our virtual drop-in hours by Zoom:
· Mondays and Thursdays, 1 - 3 p.m
Featured image: UC Lindner College of Business students at PWC Switzerland | Photo: Jack Sheridan
Student interviews by Kathleen Hornstra, UC International
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