Thursday, March 16, 2006
Hong Kong, Here I Come
We just received our exchange placements today, and I, along with two other students, will be heading off to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in September. Fifty six students, out of ~170, are going on exchange to places all over the world. Last year, only one person applied to and went to HKUST so this year I was surprised to find that the competition to go to HK was tougher than London Business School, NYU-Stern and Duke. Six people for three slots.
The process is that you apply for a certain school and if there is competition, then you do an interview with the Exchange Director and the MBA Director who decide who will go based 40% on your GPA and 60% on the interview.
Anyway, what follows are some gratuitous pictures of where I will be from September to December.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Chinese New Year & Explosives
If you like fireworks, then you must visit China during Chinese New Year. Although nearly impossible to describe or even effectively show, I've found four videos that show the craziness that is this holiday. The first two below are the more mild ones. I will post the two really crazy ones when I have a chance to fully give the post the attention it deserves.
Fireworks MadnessIf your video is a little slow or "jumpy" hit the play/pause button to stop the video and let the light grey bar fully load before playing. This is worth it, trust me. And make sure you have sound turned on.
Fireworks MadnessIf your video is a little slow or "jumpy" hit the play/pause button to stop the video and let the light grey bar fully load before playing. This is worth it, trust me. And make sure you have sound turned on.
Assorted CEIBS Related News
Ahmedabad, November 26: A team of two Chinese students on Friday won the first prize for a presentation on 'Management Beyond the Obvious: Destination Ahmedabad' at the ongoing Confluence 2005 at IIM-A. Their presentation threw up a comprehensive formula for making Ahmedabad a world-class city like Shanghai.
The two students suggested developing a quality public transportation system, making Sabarmati Ashram a cultural tourism hub, developing western part of the city as a commercial hub and eastern part as the hub for all research and education centres, and also developing some university villages. (cont'd)
CEIBS MBA Students Win Confluence Award
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Walk into any classroom at one of China's elite business schools and what you're likely to see isn't all that different from what you would find at Harvard, Wharton, or MIT's Sloan School. True, there's a preponderance of Asian faces and the occasional smattering of Mandarin. But the classes, course materials, subject matter, and even the teachers are virtually identical to their U.S. counterparts.
Indeed, in most cases the MBA programs attended by China's top students are very much the product of Western educational institutions, which in recent years have rushed to establish programs on the mainland. The idea: to tap into the enormous demand for talent created by China's white-hot economy. (cont'd)
China's B-School Boom
Business Week China MBA Section
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FT Global MBA Top 100 Rankings
FT EMBA Rankings
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SINGAPORE - Insead, one of the top European business schools, based in Fontainebleau, near Paris, opened an Asian campus in Singapore six years ago. This autumn, if all goes according to plan, it will take an additional step into the Asian market, with the introduction of an executive MBA program in China, offered jointly with Tsinghua University, of Beijing.
"The Chinese believe very strongly that China is unique and therefore they should learn something on China in China," Hellmut Schütte, the dean of the Singapore campus, said in an interview. (cont'd)
Have foreign MBA, will travel in Chinese business - International Herald Tribune
The two students suggested developing a quality public transportation system, making Sabarmati Ashram a cultural tourism hub, developing western part of the city as a commercial hub and eastern part as the hub for all research and education centres, and also developing some university villages. (cont'd)
CEIBS MBA Students Win Confluence Award
------
Walk into any classroom at one of China's elite business schools and what you're likely to see isn't all that different from what you would find at Harvard, Wharton, or MIT's Sloan School. True, there's a preponderance of Asian faces and the occasional smattering of Mandarin. But the classes, course materials, subject matter, and even the teachers are virtually identical to their U.S. counterparts.
Indeed, in most cases the MBA programs attended by China's top students are very much the product of Western educational institutions, which in recent years have rushed to establish programs on the mainland. The idea: to tap into the enormous demand for talent created by China's white-hot economy. (cont'd)
China's B-School Boom
Business Week China MBA Section
------
FT Global MBA Top 100 Rankings
FT EMBA Rankings
------
SINGAPORE - Insead, one of the top European business schools, based in Fontainebleau, near Paris, opened an Asian campus in Singapore six years ago. This autumn, if all goes according to plan, it will take an additional step into the Asian market, with the introduction of an executive MBA program in China, offered jointly with Tsinghua University, of Beijing.
"The Chinese believe very strongly that China is unique and therefore they should learn something on China in China," Hellmut Schütte, the dean of the Singapore campus, said in an interview. (cont'd)
Have foreign MBA, will travel in Chinese business - International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The Problem With Blogs...
I have, and I'm sure you have also no doubt discovered this probably with both glee and disappointment, discovered the biggest problem with having a blog. Providing updates to the hungry masses. This space has been "A continuing Reminder of My Failure" for the past 2-3 months. Which is not a pleasant lasting memory to leave etched in the foreverness that is the Internet. Should a prospective employer come across this area they will surely immediately drop any notion of hiring me for my neglect of both family and friends for such an unseemingly long time. For this new life woe that has now entered my life I obviously have only one person I can blame. Al Gore. However, his continuing silence in response to my angry emails regarding his invention of this electronic superhighway thingy have forced me to return from the seemingly dark bowels of Shanghai and CEIBS to let everyone know that, No, I'm not dead, stuck indefinitely inside an opium den, a newly minted billionaire too good to regard your presence anymore, or been sequestered by the Chinese government to do hard manual labor for my capitalist roader ways. Or yet at least.
Regardless, and blogging can be time consuming (ok, I may have also chosen to watch some of my Law and Order Season 1 & 2 boxed set instead of writing, but can you blame me??). What has happened in the meantime is what I will attempt to update here a soon as I can in what I can only expect will look like a stream of consciousness brain fart of random posts. So, first things first, I guess.
We are obviously well into (halfway even, I think) our second term of bschool here at the increasingly sunny and warm CEIBS campus. The new EMBA (Executive MBA, the unlucky SOBs that get to work all week then come to class on the weekends) class starts tomorrow of which there are apparently a record breaking 60 foreigners. Perhaps this as something to do with the Financial Times ranking the EMBA program at CEIBS as the number 13th in the world and where 60% of participants are top management (CEO, CFO, on the Board of Directors, etc.). Just as important (or going out on a limb, more important) is that the same newspaper upgraded CEIBS' MBA ranking from 22 in the world to 21. A positive step but a significantly slower rate of increase than in past years (2005 - 22nd, 2004 - 53th, 2003 - 96th). Logically, though, the higher you get the tougher it gets to keep moving up, but we were all hoping to break into the crucial Top 20 designation. With the Finance club, we've created a recommended reading booklist, hosted a Senior Director of the Shanghai Futures Exchange and lined up two Private Equity speakers for the next two months. Also worth mentioning briefly is that it is "internship" season, although belatedly so. The administration was not quite on the ball when informing the students of the internship deadline it was a mere 5 weeks away. Que panic mode. This is a topic I'll need to cover in more detail in the future. Also forthcoming and long over due is a Term 1 review. Stay tuned (but not too tuned in!).
Next post, will be the flip side (the fun one!) of life in Shanghai, especially Chinese New Year, which is now firmly in my top 3 favorite holidays.
Otherwise, here is a short review of the Term 2 classes and stop me if I bore you here:
Operations Management: The teacher is great and has been in China since 1980(!). The subject (mainly manufacturing) in general is interesting, but actually arranging floorplans and analyzing bottlenecks is not quite my cup of tea, I've found. Touring factories is fun, designing them... not so much. We've recently started Just-in-Time, Lean manufacturing/engineering, etc. Most brutal, however, is a business simulation that starts this Friday. Basically, we are managing a virtual factory online. The trick, however, is that for everyday of factory time, one hour of real time goes by. So from 1pm to 5pm, for manufacturing days in the factory have occurred. And this factory doesn't stop. Goes 24/7 and doesn't take a rest when we're sleeping or in class.
Management Accounting : A necessary evil. I'll leave it at that for fear of saying something I'll regret.
Strategic Management: This teacher is a raging Briton (probably an oxymoron, I know) and this class is most people's favorite but has been the most challenging. All case study based and we've looked at industries from metal container packaging, to the European airline industry to consulting services. In fact, today we had an associate partner from McKinsey, the world famous consultancy, speak to us in class today.
Business Ethics & Corporate Governance: This one is interesting but geared more for the Chinese since most of them haven't been exposed to environmentalism and business ethics like most of the foreigners have been for most of their lives. You'd see what I mean if you saw the pollution in China. Not to say my Chinese classmates are unethical or anything of the sort but just haven't had some of these things drilled into their heads like I have had.
Corporate Finance: Mostly a rehash of CFA material for me which some new twists thrown in for good measure. Our professor, Chang Chun (or Zhang Chun) is apparently quite famous in China and the editor of a respected business magazine and comes to us from the University of Minnesota.
And for your viewing pleasure, a short video from one my favorite new websites.
YouTube - Shanghai MagLev Train
Regardless, and blogging can be time consuming (ok, I may have also chosen to watch some of my Law and Order Season 1 & 2 boxed set instead of writing, but can you blame me??). What has happened in the meantime is what I will attempt to update here a soon as I can in what I can only expect will look like a stream of consciousness brain fart of random posts. So, first things first, I guess.
We are obviously well into (halfway even, I think) our second term of bschool here at the increasingly sunny and warm CEIBS campus. The new EMBA (Executive MBA, the unlucky SOBs that get to work all week then come to class on the weekends) class starts tomorrow of which there are apparently a record breaking 60 foreigners. Perhaps this as something to do with the Financial Times ranking the EMBA program at CEIBS as the number 13th in the world and where 60% of participants are top management (CEO, CFO, on the Board of Directors, etc.). Just as important (or going out on a limb, more important) is that the same newspaper upgraded CEIBS' MBA ranking from 22 in the world to 21. A positive step but a significantly slower rate of increase than in past years (2005 - 22nd, 2004 - 53th, 2003 - 96th). Logically, though, the higher you get the tougher it gets to keep moving up, but we were all hoping to break into the crucial Top 20 designation. With the Finance club, we've created a recommended reading booklist, hosted a Senior Director of the Shanghai Futures Exchange and lined up two Private Equity speakers for the next two months. Also worth mentioning briefly is that it is "internship" season, although belatedly so. The administration was not quite on the ball when informing the students of the internship deadline it was a mere 5 weeks away. Que panic mode. This is a topic I'll need to cover in more detail in the future. Also forthcoming and long over due is a Term 1 review. Stay tuned (but not too tuned in!).
Next post, will be the flip side (the fun one!) of life in Shanghai, especially Chinese New Year, which is now firmly in my top 3 favorite holidays.
Otherwise, here is a short review of the Term 2 classes and stop me if I bore you here:
Operations Management: The teacher is great and has been in China since 1980(!). The subject (mainly manufacturing) in general is interesting, but actually arranging floorplans and analyzing bottlenecks is not quite my cup of tea, I've found. Touring factories is fun, designing them... not so much. We've recently started Just-in-Time, Lean manufacturing/engineering, etc. Most brutal, however, is a business simulation that starts this Friday. Basically, we are managing a virtual factory online. The trick, however, is that for everyday of factory time, one hour of real time goes by. So from 1pm to 5pm, for manufacturing days in the factory have occurred. And this factory doesn't stop. Goes 24/7 and doesn't take a rest when we're sleeping or in class.
Management Accounting : A necessary evil. I'll leave it at that for fear of saying something I'll regret.
Strategic Management: This teacher is a raging Briton (probably an oxymoron, I know) and this class is most people's favorite but has been the most challenging. All case study based and we've looked at industries from metal container packaging, to the European airline industry to consulting services. In fact, today we had an associate partner from McKinsey, the world famous consultancy, speak to us in class today.
Business Ethics & Corporate Governance: This one is interesting but geared more for the Chinese since most of them haven't been exposed to environmentalism and business ethics like most of the foreigners have been for most of their lives. You'd see what I mean if you saw the pollution in China. Not to say my Chinese classmates are unethical or anything of the sort but just haven't had some of these things drilled into their heads like I have had.
Corporate Finance: Mostly a rehash of CFA material for me which some new twists thrown in for good measure. Our professor, Chang Chun (or Zhang Chun) is apparently quite famous in China and the editor of a respected business magazine and comes to us from the University of Minnesota.
And for your viewing pleasure, a short video from one my favorite new websites.
YouTube - Shanghai MagLev Train
