When 21 Georgia State University graduate students left last month for a two-week study abroad program in South Africa, most did not expect to find a country quite so modern, so bustling, with such a sophisticated business climate.

 “The popular mode of transportation in the major cities included Mercedes-Benz and BMW,” Ivey McCloud wrote on the student blog about the trip. ”The malls were just like American malls. Canal Walk in Cape Town was like Atlantic Station on steroids. At times, I did not feel like I was in another country.”

The students, working part time on professional master’s in business administration degrees at Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business, toured diamond mines and Kruger National Park wildlife reserve. Yet they also visited insurance companies, law firms, banks and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. They toured the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other opponents of apartheid were imprisoned. They also toured the South African offices of Coca-Cola Co. and talked to entrepreneurs struggling to get capital for startup businesses.

They visited the Royal Bafokeng nation, the ethnic homeland within South Africa of the Bafokeng people. It has rich deposits of platinum and is hosting the 2010 World Cup soccer competition. It is also pouring enormous amounts of money into educating its young people, particularly in math and science.

“The current king chose not to live a life of excess but to reinvest in his people,” wrote Kimberly Weaver on the student blog.

Jacobus Boers, a native of South Africa and lecturer on international business at Robinson who was one of the faculty advisers on the trip, said improving education is crucial to South Africa’s economic future.

“Apartheid’s legacy was that 90 percent of the population didn’t get an adequate education,” said Mr. Boers. That deficiency resulted in a shortage of skilled workers that remains a drag on the nation’s economy, he said.

The South African government has launched many affirmative action programs to offset the effects of apartheid, but the success of those programs depends on a skilled, educated workforce, Mr. Boers said.

The HIV/AIDS  epidemic remains another huge problem in South Africa. The government and the business community are working hard to reduce the spread of the disease, said student Karen David.

“Almost every company we visited had an initiative in place to address HIV/AIDS in their respective workplaces and in the communities,” she told GlobalAtlanta. “I think all businesses have realized that the health and education of the entire country plays a critical role in stabilizing their economy. And a stable economy is critical to South Africa thriving and emerging.”

Despite the country’s many problems, the GSU students and faculty members were impressed with South Africa’s progress and its economic prospects.

“I would move there in a flash,” said Pedro Carrillo, another Robinson faculty adviser on the trip.

South Africa has the world’s 26th largest economy, with a gross domestic product of around $489 billion, according to the CIA World Factbook. It ranks higher than countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Venezuela and Malaysia.

Conversely, a South African company, SASOL, converts coal to oil, a technology that might be put to good use in the U.S., he said.

“It’s a complex, fascinating country,” said Mr.Carrillo. “I feel it’s a country that has a huge amount of business potential.”

GSU student Ben Thomas wrote in his blog that the trip taught him a valuable lesson on how to size up countries abroad.

“South Africa has beautiful landscapes and clean cities,” he wrote.  “It has bustling downtowns and rural farming villages.  It has people living in opulence and people living in tin shanties.  And, it has everything in between. I will no longer make quick judgments about a country based on the title of ‘developing.' I can now use my experiences to help create a new framework to objectively judge a country and its potential.”

View the GSU trip blog here . 

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