WelAndra Francis has visited the United States several times before coming here to attend Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. WelAndra is from Nassau Bahamas and she talks about why she chooses international business as her major. “I am studying international business and being from the Bahamas we are exposed a lot to culture because tourism is our main industry,” she says. “I guess growing up in an economy and a culture where being exposed to different people was really an integrate part of the lifestyle of living in the Bahamas, I decided that I wanted to study a field that would incorporate the learning and the understanding of different cultures.”
“So I guess that coupled along with the fact that I was always interested in things that are different including different people I guess that is an innate quality of mine I decided to study international business.”
Not only did the field of international business interest WelAndra enough to want to study in the U-S, but she says the standard of living in America is appealing to her as well. “I have kind of been exposed the economy of America which I think is very admirable in terms of the standard of living and a lot of the government trend that I think is very economically appealing,” she says.
“Not only to the Bahamas, but to the rest of the world. America has a very good economic background and so not only being interested in international business and foreign relations I am also interested in the economy and understanding how the status and the standards of other countries such as America, how I can learn from it as a citizen of the Bahamas to kind of mimic it in a way so when I get back home I will be able to share with my country or create a model for my country to improve the standard of living and to improve economic trends such as it is here in America.”
Adjusting to the college life has gone well for WelAndra. She says having classmates and friends from different cultural background will help her become a good scholar. “Being at Fisk will not only help me in my understanding of cultures, but also it will help me in the field of international business and help me with my understanding of how to be a scholar,” she says. “Sitting in the classrooms and interacting with such intriguing peers will help me to basically broaden my horizon in terms of my concept of the world and my concept of people."
Going to college in Nashville, Tennessee the past three years, WelAndra says it has become her second home. She also enjoys getting together with other students from the Bahamas to cook meals from back home. So what are the highlights of attending Fisk University? WelAndra says.... “I enjoy the students. Everybody is really friendly here and it is a small university so its very community and friend oriented. The professors. Because the university is so small you actually get time to get to know your professors on a one on one basis and that is an awesome feeling as well,” she says.
“In addition to that its probably on the top of my list is the history. The rich history and the rich heritage here at Fisk. Learning about the forefathers has been an enlightening experience because a lot of the things I found out about African-Americans and the history I really didn’t know coming from the Bahamas,” she adds. “So it has been a profound experience to be able to learn about people like W.E.B DuBois and Booker T. Washington and even past Fiskites like Nikki Giovanni and so it is just a profound really profound experience to be able to sit in the presence of scholars and be able to take from the whole experience a new outlook on life.”
WelAndra will graduate in May and then return home for a while. She says she has already applied to several universities in Florida for graduate studies. She wants to pursue an MBA in international business and foreign studies.