Charice Stroud

Study Abroad Student Spotlight: Charice Stroud

Your first study abroad participation was a trip to Uruguay over spring break of your sophomore year. How did you settle on this opportunity?

When I came to UGA my freshman year, I began to consider who I was going to be here. I got involved in several clubs and activities and through word of mouth I met Carolina Robinson, who was the CAES Study Abroad coordinator. She talked to me about the program and emphasized that scholarships were available to help with the expenses.

What was that experience like?

The program was specific for agricultural business and agricultural economics majors with an emphasis on grain and beef production. Because Uruguay exports most of its grain and beef to the European Union, there are a lot of regulations and quality control requirements that must be followed, so we learned a lot about that. We visited six different ranches and learned about everything from their beef slaughtering techniques to watching an artificial insemination demonstration and learning about how sheep farmers harvest wool.

You mentioned that you also ate a lot of beef.

In Uruguay you have beef at every meal. In fact, I experienced a bit of swelling from the combination of eating so much red meat and being at such a high altitude.

In 2015, you spent 10 days in Costa Rica learning about coffee production. Tell me a little about that experience.

Coffee is the second-most, legally, traded commodity after oil throughout the world. We learned about coffee production from the growing of the plants to harvest, roasting, cupping and all the other steps that go into producing coffee, but a lot of our focus was on the Costa Rican growers’ efforts to develop more value for their product. Currently, the coffee bean growers make relatively little money because they just sell the coffee “cherries” to others, who export it to other countries. Now, they’re focusing on differentiating their products and taking advantage of the tourism market.

By Denise Horton (contracted writer for the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Office of Global Programs)