Adding MBA after name? Think twice.
August 28, 2010 – 4:50 amA few days ago, a whole new world looked at me from the pages of the advertising section in a local newspaper in Toronto, Canada. Mortgage brokers and real estate agents add “M.B.A” after their names in ads.
My first reaction was that it was totally out of place like sand in the eyes, but not to jump to any conclusions, I did a bit of research into this. I discovered that there are many people who are opposed (sometimes fiercely) to the use of M.B.A. after names, while others say it is totally acceptable.
Turns out the truth is somewhere in the middle. Adding academic post-nominal letters after the name is not entirely correct for a person who is not a student or involved in the academia professionally. While there is no rule of the English language that prevents one from listing all the academic degrees after the name, there is however a rule of etiquette in North America that signing the degree is only acceptable when acting in a capacity, where the field of expertise of this degree is relevant.
MBA is an academic degree, not a professional one, and therefore using the three letters by a real estate agent in newspaper ads is not in line with etiquette rules. On the other hand, it is a good idea for participants at an academic conference who have advanced business degrees to indicate such.
Continued involvement at Wharton/Lauder
August 6, 2010 – 1:34 amYesterday, I was among several alumni present at a Wharton admissions event in Sunnyvale, CA that was kindly hosted by Yahoo! Inc. Needless to say, the event was organized and led by Wharton alums from start to end. About a hundred prospective candidates attended the event, and today, some of them have already been in contact with me (and I am sure with all of the alums) with very specific questions about Wharton and Lauder. It is great to be able to help people learn about the best business school on earth! I think building bridges between the school and the outside world is a great way to get involved.
After graduation, one can also become an interviewer or help Wharton by hosting or participating in admissions events just like the one at Yahoo!. Some of the alums who came yesterday have been acting in that role for years now, and to me, this both sets an example and speaks volumes of the support that comes from the alumni.
On the other hand, this connection goes both ways and the school continues to be a professional development resource if one wishes. For instance, this week I have been in contact with several of my professors at Wharton, and they have been eager to provide their input into solving some analytical problems I am dealing with at work.
Is there Wharton/Lauder life after Wharton/Lauder?
July 25, 2010 – 6:21 pmFirst, there is not necessarily “after” Wharton/Lauder — it can be a permanent involvement. The good news is that the two years at Wharton and Lauder start a soft revolution in one’s life, and it is up to the individual what to do with the change. It has been 2.5 months since graduation, and while the life is definitely different, connection to Wharton and Lauder is well-pronounced.
Wharton supports alumni organizations throughout the world. These vary in degree of activity, but many are very active locally. For example, Toronto Wharton Alumni Association organizes regular informal alumni meetings every four weeks; these are usually at some pub in downtown T.dot (aka Toronto). There are also opportunities to meet random business and social leaders, thinkers, practitioners and researchers that somehow appear on the club’s radar.
In Northern California, there is a very active alumni club with activities every week ranging from on-going regular seminars for C-level executives to entrepreneur networking and leads generation activities to wine tasting in Napa Valley or learning about chocolate from the artisans.
There is also a separate Lauder Institute Alumni Association, and this body is very active, too. The Association unites all Lauder alums, and there are regular Global Forums that take place one or two times a year. The next one is coming up soon, it will take place in San Francisco on October 1-3, and the activities will range from conferences, discussions, dinners to informal get-togethers and voyages to the nearby wineries. When I registered for the Forum a couple of weeks ago, the list of attendees was 170 people-strong.
More on ways to stay tuned with Wharton/Lauder in my next post.
Done and done
June 13, 2010 – 10:26 pmI graduated, and I am now a Wharton/Lauder alumnus.
The graduation ceremony took place in Philadelphia on May 16. It was a busy and long day for me, my little family, and a couple of very good friends who came for graduation.
Everything went according to schedule: all cohorts, clad in graduation regalia, lined up at 11:00 am, then we marched down the Locust Walk all the way to the Franklin Field , where all the formalities were performed.
I found our graduation speaker delightful and inspiring. “Integrity is the stone of the realm” was the leitmotif of the speech , and the words are still echoing in my head – it is such a simple, yet very powerful truth, a constant reminder to always be honest, and deal ethically.
Special kudos to Dean Anjani Jain for having pronounced all 800+ names correctly during the roll call! Anjani must be paid extra for this exceptional talent. He once told me in the MBA Pub that he does his name research, makes sure his pronunciation and stress are correct, and starts practicing several weeks in advance. He must get every name perfectly right, and name calling, walking up to the stage, hand shake, and receiving the diploma must take no longer than fifteen seconds per student.
The ceremonial activities, speeches, etc. took a good four hours, during which time the friends and family in the audience were patiently waiting, and making sure they had enough sun screen on – it was a hot and sunny day.
After the main Wharton event, the Lauder Institute had a separate graduation ceremony at the Houston Hall. This was a less formal, but not less significant event.
Lauder had two graduation speakers: Mr. Shiv Khemka, Vice Chairman of the Sun Group, and Mr. Paul Hynek, Deal Maker, Giant Studios, both Lauder class of 1990, both on the Lauder Board of Governors. Both Shiv and Paul touched upon one particular thing that sets Wharton apart: courage to take the challenge, and win or lose honestly – in line with the Black Rock CEO’s speech earlier. They also encouraged us to be entrepreneurs in everything we do; and of course, their personal stories were both inspiring and impressive. For example, Shiv shared his incredible success story in Russia, while Paul told us about the movies he has helped to make (his firm has made the life-like computer animation for James Cameron’s “Avatar”) and how being open-minded helped him work and do business overseas.
Then there was our wonderful student speaker, Emily Di Capua (Chinese track), who wrapped up our two years at Lauder as only she could – I am sure everyone in the audience was touched by her words.
Then there were awards (the award and money prize for best research went to Johanna Kuhn-Osius, Chinese track), photos, and a wine-and-cheese reception, where we got to meet each other’s family friends.
My daughter ran around, talked to people, and drank as much Coca-Cola as she could. She casually talked to Paul Hynek, who gave her a small, but special Avatar gift (only the crew and actors have this thing). I looked at her and at all the people from a distance, and I thought I hoped so much that one day she would be in my shoes, the happiest person on Earth, drinking good wine with very good friends and celebrating the completion of her own MBA/MA in the Houston Hall. Then again, she might never make the choice to go to Wharton and Lauder, but if she does, it will be one of the best choices she will ever make.
Beach Week
May 13, 2010 – 12:41 pmWharton cherishes its many good traditions. One great tradition is for the graduating MBA class to spend a week after the exams and before graduation on the beach in Miami Beach, Florida. This time is referred to as “Beach Week”.
Our Beach Week was tons of fun: pool side parties, fun at the beach, breakfasts, brunches and dinners, wild nights at some of the best clubs. Again, Wharton works hard and plays hard, and both work and play are taken very seriously: if we do something, we do it well.
A bunch of Lauder students stayed as a big lively family in what we called the “Lauder House” on Collins Street – a private boutique hotel we rented out for the week. Needless to say, when over 20 good friends stay together in Miami Beach, non-stop partying is inevitable.
2010 Beach Week is over, and the class is back in Philadelphia.
Today is the last Pub for 2nd Years. Tomorrow is Final Friday, and Sunday is Graduation day.
Last day of classes
April 28, 2010 – 12:24 amToday was the last day of classes. I cannot believe the two amazing years at Wharton are over. Bittersweet.
My final classes at Wharton/Lauder
April 20, 2010 – 2:36 amToday I had my final Chinese class at the Lauder Institute.
It is symbolic that the note I wrote right at the moment when the Prof. called it a class was an idiom 不遗余力, which means “to spare no effort” or “tirelessly”. It does sum up all the hard work that our language instructors have put into the Chinese program: our Mandarin track has the highest OPI graduation achievement level at Lauder this year. It also is indicative of the effort that I personally have put into my MBA/MA degree at Wharton/Lauder.
Overall, our unique MBA/MA program requires an input of creativity, hard work, a lot of time (very frequent all-nighters, too). The output is a new you equipped with new skills, new knowledge, and new perspectives: I got all of this supplemented with a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction and tons of fun with many incredibly gifted friends from all over the world.
Life is good.
Wharton Dance Studio
April 6, 2010 – 11:26 pmI have posted some pictures from the Dance Studio performance (click on the tab above). It was a magnificent show, and the turn out was impressive. Allegedly, about 800 tickets were sold.
Wharton Dance Show
March 30, 2010 – 8:30 pmTomorrow is a big day for my little family: my wife has been preparing for the Wharton Dance Show for the past three months, and finally tomorrow is THE day. They will have two performances at the Annenberg Theater: one tomorrow and one the day after. Lots of Lauder students are traditionally involved in this annual Wharton performance as well.
My place is like a big dressing room: stage costumes, make up, fake jewelry, wigs, etc. are everywhere. Dance music is on most of the time, which has been making my little one very excited (needless to say, she has tried on all her mom’s costumes several times).
As someone witnessing the preparation and rehearsals from the inside, I can already say that the show this year will be magnificent!
Tickets are 20 dollars, DVD’s will sell for $15, and memories will be priceless. I am excited to see a lot of good friends on stage in a completely new environment. Can’t wait.
Sad day
March 29, 2010 – 6:35 pmMoscow is once again a place of a disaster. I am sad, sad, sad.
If you have any thoughts on what should be done to solve Russia’s insurgence and terrorism problem, please share with me in the comments.
Lauder Chinese Track Potluck
March 28, 2010 – 11:35 pmChinese Track first and second years had a potluck today. We have these activities several times a year, and it is always fun, but I have never seen a full turn out. Today’s potluck was not different.
This is a general trend at Wharton/Lauder: scheduling is a huge problem. So many things are happening at once, and everyone has their own agenda on top of the events schedule, that organizing anything massive takes a lot of effort, and one should never expect a 100% attendance.
One might think that certain type of activities are given a low priority, but the trend persists for any type of a gathering: even for group assignments for class it is very difficult to synch everyone’s time tables and find a time slot that is convenient for all. However, I have noticed that at the end of the second year, most people become very good at managing their time, and scheduling becomes somewhat easier.
To this end, I am convinced that Lauder students are among the best multi-tasking time managers out there: we have a much heavier work load at school, and a generally richer social life, and yet, we manage!
Wharton MBA babies
March 27, 2010 – 10:08 pmToday, our very good friends were having a baby shower – they are expecting any day now. The party was great: many people came to congratulate them. It was a happy, wonderfully delightful time.
Many married couples at Wharton decide to have children while at school. In my view, if a family wants a child, b-school is the right time for them if one of the spouses has to leave work for the time the other is at school. That arrangement seems to be the norm with MBA families.
I have no statistics on what % of Wharton couples have kids while at school, but the number of such couples I know is considerable. Two types of arrangement seem to prevail:
1) Have babies in pre-term, and by the time you graduate, they are already 2 years old. To me, this is the path of extreme multi-taskers: to put it into work load perspective, the baby is probably equivalent to taking an additional 3 semester-long worth of courses with cases due every day. At Wharton/Lauder this is very tough by any measure, and I imagine this would be even tougher for couples who have not had children before. Not surprisingly, most couples in our year who have gone this road are families who had already had at least one child.
2) Have babies in the last semester of school. By this time, if you are a typical Wharton MBA, you already have secured a good job, and you will have a lot of time on your hands after you graduate in May and before you start work (typically in the fall), so you will be able to devote all of it to the new born.
Regardless of the arrangement, Wharton babies turn out to be cute, healthy and happy. The section on Spike (our school bulletin board), called “Milestones”, that is especially devoted to marriages and newly born children is frequently updated with photos of happy newly weds, and beautiful kids.
MBA Colloquia at Wharton
March 26, 2010 – 5:57 pmWharton is a very dynamic place, and the opportunities for learning here are truly endless.
For example, today right after Prof. Diamond’s Negotiations class (He is exceptional!), I decided to go and check out the speakers invited to the MBA Colloquia forum. It was a fantastic way to learn about the experiences of Wharton MBA’s with over ten years into their post-MBA path. I appreciated the sincere, and experience-based insight into what to expect from life and career, as well as ways to steer the two in a desired direction.
There was a chance to hear and interact with alums who were in our shoes a decade ago, and who are now VC’s, hedge fund managers, private equity execs, health care executives, and consultants. I personally think that this type of retrospective view was a wonderful way to showcase the value of Wharton MBA, as well as the challenges and opportunities that come with it.
The discussions were lively, interaction – direct, and alums – approachable and open to any type of questions.
Graduation speaker for Wharton MBA class of 2010
March 26, 2010 – 5:38 pmDean Robertson sent a class-wide email last night announcing that our graduation speaker will be Robert S. Kapito, W’79, Co-Founder, President and Director of BlackRock.
I think this is a good choice: many of my classmates aspire to be in Mr. Kapito’s position one day, and the school certainly wants more alumni of that caliber to show the level of active involvement in school’s activities comparable to Robert’s, which is, to say the least, impressive.
Dean Robertson writes:
“[Mr. Kapito] earned his BS in economics from Wharton in 1979, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1983. As a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, he is a founding member of the Debt Subcommittee, and a member of the Investment Board, the Budget and Finance Committee, and the Audit and Compliance Committee. Last fall, he was honored with the Joseph Wharton Award for Leadership, which is given to the Wharton alumnus who embodies the highest standards of leadership in both business and society.”
Wharton Studio 54 Party
March 25, 2010 – 11:46 pm
Organized by Wharton Gay And Lesbian Club
This 70’s-inspired party is one of the annual massive parties at Wharton, and it is tonight. The idea comes from the legendary Studio 54 – this is arguably the most bizarre and wild party at Wharton. Actually, for some strange reason, my school loves costume and theme parties.
Another tendency I have noticed that event and party tickets have become more expensive this year, and at the same time they are often impossible to buy. For example, regular Studio 54 tix sold for $35 a pop, and VIP tickets went for as much as $80 each this year. The tickets sold out in no time on Wharton Graduate Association website, and then there was a very limited offering of them on student grapevine (read: Facebook, cohort and Lauder list serve) from people who could no longer go.
It is absolutely true that Wharton works hard, and plays hard. This factor alone is the ultimate deal breaker when it comes to academics-fun balance at b-schools: I am confident that we win over all other schools out there on both the quality of academics and the amount of fun we have.
Wharton encourages student participation in BusinessWeek b-school survey
March 25, 2010 – 11:23 pmToday, our class got a school-wide email from Anjani Jain and Kembrel Jones, Deputy Vice Dean of Student Life, that started like this:
“Dear Class of 2010,
We are writing to you because BusinessWeek is about to conduct their annual survey of MBA Programs and we wanted to provide you some relevant information. [...]”
The “relevant information” concerned those who would rather not be contacted by BusinessWeek with requests to provide info for its survey of schools and wish to opt out now.
The email finished with:
“We believe that to the extent Wharton graduates should choose to participate in surveys and media rankings, all of the Wharton community should have an equal opportunity to participate. At the same time, it is our hope that, with potentially greater sample sizes, the exceptional strength of our total global student body will be better represented. We therefore encourage your participation in the surveys.”
There were no details on other aspects of Wharton’s participation in the survey, but encouraging the students to take part is a clear indication that the management has decided to at least partially assist BusinessWeek in its research and rankings again after several years of deliberate avoidance of active participation in such.
If BusinessWeek contacts me, I will give both Wharton and Lauder exceptionally high rankings across all categories. It is an amazing place, and I hope it will remain such for centuries to come. Go Wharton! Go Lauder!
Inventor of mobile internet at Wharton
March 25, 2010 – 10:37 pmTakeshi Natsuno, Wharton Graduate ‘95, talked with Wharton students today on the current state of things, and the future of mobile internet in the world.
The email sent out to the school introduced him as:
“Takeshi Natsuno, Professor of KEIO University, former Senior Vice President of NTT DoCoMo, developed the business strategy of all of NTT DoCoMo’s multimedia-related services, including i-mode strategic alliances with global application/content providers and key Internet players.
Mr. Natsuno, one of the key developers of i-mode business models, managed the Japan launch of i-mode in 1999. The service has achieved tremendous success, attracting about 48 million subscribers to date while pioneering the world’s non-voice communications market. Widely regarded as a leading expert on the Internet and multimedia, he was named one of the world’s 25 most influential e-business leaders by Business Week in 2001.
After graduating Wharton in 1995, Mr. Natsuno held key executive positions with HyperNet, a leading Internet venture company. He joined DoCoMo in 1997 and he started his new career as a professor of KEIO University, a board of directors of Dwango, Sega Sammy Holdings, SBI Holdings, Pia, Trans Cosmos from 2008 and Gree from 2009.”
Takeshi is a very charismatic speaker. He is smart, direct, clear and funny – qualities that make him easy and interesting to listen to.
There were many things he brought up during his talk; here are some of them:
1. Outside Japan, mobile banking and mobile finance will most probably pick up and develop much faster in the emerging markets than in the developed world.
2. Mobile communications market is no longer a domain of device manufacturers or mobile operators: it is increasingly dominated by Internet giants such as Google. This trend will continue.
3. Standardization such as WAP is limiting the sector.
4. Android OS will gain at least 50% market share, although right now Android-based phones are “awful”.
During the Q&A part, he commented on Google’s position vis-a-vis China, and his view is that in the long run, Google will come out on top. He also thinks that for Google, its search business in China was not so important in the grand scheme of things.
Mobile finance will develop faster in emerging markets
Toyota troubles explained at Wharton
March 24, 2010 – 10:19 pmYesterday was yet another exciting learning opportunity. Takahiro Fujimoto (Professor, Faculty of Economics, the University of Tokyo, Executive Director, Manufacturing Management Research Center) came to Wharton to share his view on the exact reasons why Toyota has got in trouble in the first place, and what awaits this marvelous corporation.
Advert of the lecture on Wharton Information Network screen at Huntsman Hall
His view was comprehensive, and made a lot of sense to me. Dr. Fujimoto points out to three aspects that led to the recent Toyota crisis:
1. Increased complexity of the product
2. Toyota’s unjustified confidence that it can handle any complexity and scale it up fast.
3. Arrogance among Toyota’s employees, that has crept into the company during the hey-day times.
He had a lot of compelling evidence based on his thorough research of Toyota’s manufacturing and management practices that allowed him to share his optimism about the future of the company. He did speak a lot about “weak HQ, strong factory” paradigm that apparently permeates a lot of Japanese firms, but he also pointed out that Toyota has long recognized this problem, and was taking steps to eliminate it.
Another interesting observation is that he thinks that in order to stay competitive, car manufacturers, including Toyota, will need to be able to work on both simple and complex products vs. solely focusing on churning out increasingly complex cars.
The lecture followed by a lively panel with Prof. Terwiesch – one of the brightest minds in Operations Management in the world.
Lively panel on Toyota in Crisis with Toyota Guru
Magic Johnson at Wharton Social Impact Conference 2010
March 23, 2010 – 5:29 pmLast week I got to see, listen to and talk with Magic Johnson. He was a keynote speaker at the Wharton Social Impact Conference – his connection to Wharton is through his business partner, Bobby Turner, an active Wharton alumnus and a successful businessman.
Magic’s message was simple: concentrate on doing more good in addition to and in parallel to creating wealth. Overall, he is a compelling speaker and an accessible person with a big heart.
I got to talk to him briefly about the effort and success of my brother Michael to make a difference in his students’ lives: he is a teacher, and the majority of his students are of African, Latin or Asian origin. Magic’s autograph and wishes of good luck have been framed and sent to Canada for display in Mike’s classroom.
Wharton Follies 2011
March 23, 2010 – 5:06 pmLife has been very dynamic and busy at my end, but I finally have a little time to publish all of the drafts I was making for the blog. So a lot of the posts will be about stuff that took place 3-4 weeks ago.
First, to follow up on my previous post on Wharton Follies. This year, I was an Assistant Producer, which mainly entails raising money for the show. The team did quite well this year. We raised money through a live auction and an online auction, and overall it was a success.
The show itself was absolutely stunning, although this year we were unable to schedule the show during the Winter Welcome Weekend, so there were not so many new admits at the show. It is worth mentioning that despite the lack of synch in schedules, some admits came specifically to see the Follies.
My personal view is that the performance is a single best way to appreciate the culture (or lack of such 
) at Wharton, and to appreciate the power and quality of teamwork, creativity and level of talent here.
Wharton Winter Welcome
February 4, 2010 – 1:24 pmLast week was awesome! There were quite a few events that would go down in history as key events of 2010.
Wharton Winter Welcome: the newly admitted Wharton students roamed around the campus in great numbers (they were easily identifiable by the tell-tale easy-to-read name badge on a bright red lanyard). What’s nice is that the caliber of the newly admitted students is at a consistent high level: I got to meet absolutely outlandish new admits.
Winter Welcome activities range from class visits, conversations with professors, school presentations and tours around town to dinners with students in fancy restaurants in Center City, all paid for by the school.
The Lauder Institute had a special reception for its admits in the Lauder Lounge. Unfortunately, I only got to see how the catering service were setting up the very exquisite menu on the tables. I had to rush to the Irvine Auditorium to hear Malcolm Gladwell – the best-selling author of The Outliers, The Tipping Point, Blink, etc. – speak, and missed the food and wine at the Lauder Lounge this year.
Such is Wharton: time management is of utmost importance, and prioritizing becomes one’s second nature. I figured that I would get to know the new Lauder class when they start classes in May, but Malcolm Gladwell’s speech was maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The Winter Welcome event this year did not coincide with Wharton Follies, though: somewhat a disappointment for some people, but one should look at the bright side as coming to see the Follies is another great reason and excuse to visit campus again on February 18th.
Here’s a teaser for this year’s Follies:
Good luck, Abby Sunderland!
January 25, 2010 – 7:26 pmCheck out the blog by Abby Sunderland: I am amazed that she at the age of 16 is braving the big seas around the world alone!
Good luck, Abby!
Prof. Diamond’s Negotiations Class at Wharton
January 15, 2010 – 4:53 pmI was lucky to have gotten Prof. Diamond’s Negotiation class this semester, and today was the first class. I had heard the class was good, but I would have never guessed just HOW good the class is.
Prof. Stuart Diamond is a legendary professor at Wharton, and his expertise and fame are spread far beyond the confines of Huntsman Hall. Here’s an excerpt from his bio available on the course website (oh yes – there is a dedicated website for the course: www.winwitheveryone.com):
“Stuart Diamond has taught and advised on negotiation and cultural diversity to corporate and government leaders in more than 40 countries, including in Eastern Europe, former Soviet Republics, China, Latin America, the Middle East, Canada, South Africa and the United States. He holds an M.B.A. with honors from Wharton Business School, ranked #1 globally by The Financial Times where he is currently a professor from practice. For more than 90% of the semesters over the past 13 years his negotiation course has been the most popular in the school based on the course auction, and he has won multiple teaching awards. He has taught negotiation at Harvard Law School, from which he holds a law degree and is a former Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project. He has directed a negotiation consulting firm in Cambridge, MA.”
He runs his own consulting shop called Global Strategy Group, runs a host of companies including an aviation business, and in his other careers he has won the Pulitzer Prize, written books and made documentaries, traded futures in New York, practiced law, founded successful start-ups, and worked in investment banking. In a word, he is amazing!
The class today was based on a case called Rating Wars, where two TV broadcast companies have to decide on what content to show with the goal of maximizing profits. The class was organized into teams of threes and fours, each team on both sides was then assigned a role – either one broadcast company or the other – and assigned an opponent team. The lecture room was divided by a makeshift curtain so that the companies could not see each other (as it would happen in real life):
Prof. Diamond starts the Negotiation course in January 2010.
We then used the information on payouts supplied with the case itself to make decisions on what programming we would choose and anticipate how our opponents would react to that choice. There was a lot of game theory involved, so I was able to use the knowledge from the Managerial Economics course with Prof. Weigelt who is by the way a renown game theorist.
We were also able to negotiate with our opponents on the issue of choice of programming both “companies” should take. I should not disclose the exact outcome of our exercise as doing so could potentially diminish the effect of the exercise for future students, but I will note that my amazing team did as well as a team could possibly do in this exercise!
It is courses like this, and people like Prof. Diamond and my team that practically every day make me think how wonderful a school is Wharton!
Second Year Drinks tradition at Wharton
January 15, 2010 – 12:49 amWharton has a number of wonderful traditions. I will try to cover some of them here.
Wharton Second Year Drinks is an informal event for second-year MBA’s – it is another opportunity to meet friends and meet new people: the school’s size leaves an opportunity to meet someone new virtually every day.
The gathering takes place at various bars around town, usually in Center City, every Wednesday at 9 pm. There is a student run organizing committee (everything at Wharton is student run), and these wonderful people do a great job at securing a place for the SY Drinks and spreading the word around. It is a popular event.
On Thursday mornings, it is not unusual to read Facebook updates from my fellow classmates mentioning hangovers, plans to limit alcohol consumption, start working out more, etc. Comes Wednesday again, and everyone is at Second Year Drinks as usual .
Parties in the fall
January 10, 2010 – 2:40 amThe third semester was extremely busy. In 2008, when the program started, I heard some people say that it gets less busy in the second year, and the further you, go the less there is to do. None of this is true.
What happens is you get more efficient at managing time, handling multiple tasks at hand, and you have a broader tool set to tackle the problems. Since you get so much better at managing all the work, there is suddenly more time for other things, and so eventually these ‘other things’ creep into your schedule and you end up very busy. However, since the second year at Wharton is all electives, the academic experience is more enjoyable than the first year.
Enough about academics. The fall semester at Wharton is the time for several traditional parties. Everything starts with the Canada Club’s Red party. Then there is the Foam Party (dancing at the Shampoo club), the White Party (everyone dresses in white), the Walnut Walk (ridiculously funny: the whole school puts on underwear and a formal top, and hits the bars on Walnut street in this shape and form). In November, Wharton Follies traditionally organize the Toga Party (participants are supposed to wear togas), but this year it was somewhat of a disaster. One event that seems to always be immensely popular with Wharton MBA’s is the Winter Ball – it is expensive ($80 per person), but very fun, and unlike the Toga Party, the event sold out this year. And of course, there is Pub every Thursday, and Second Year Drinks every Wednesday.
On top of that, there are Cohort events: my cohort went out for Karaoke, and we also got together for a huge Christmas party. Plus, there are dinners with friends and lunches with professors (Wharton has this awesome program where the school subsidizes lunches with professors if they agree to meet for lunch with students).
Clubs have their own traditional events, e.g. Greater China Club organizes a dinner for the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the RuMBA (Russian-speaking MBA’s) division of the Europa Club throws a traditional potluck mid-November. The Wine club meets regularly for a lot of wine and cheese… the list is endless.
Lauder has two traditional events in the fall: Day On the Beach (we spend a weekend in the beginning of the semester on Jersey shore not far from Atlantic City) and the Secret Santa celebration in December.
This school is a fun place that provides tons of opportunities for socializing. We work very hard, and we party just as hard after the work is done.
It was a great semester
January 9, 2010 – 4:09 amThis past semester was super. I loved every course I took – all of my professors exceeded my expectations and I learned a lot of new skills and knowledge. On the other hand, I had more time to enjoy the social life at Wharton and Lauder. The magic sum of superb academic program with equally satisfying extracurriculars was what made the past semester such a great experience! Today, I will focus on the academic component.
First off, I took three Finance courses: Advanced Corporate Finance with Prof. Bilge Yilmaz, Corporate Valuation with Prof. Oded Sarig and Prof. Simon Benninga and International Banking with Prof. Richard Herring.
Advanced Corporate Finance with Prof. Yilmaz was thorough, detailed and hands-on. It was a mixture of lectures and cases, and there was a lot of team work involved. The learning curve in this course is quite steep, and I spent a great deal of time on the subject. The prof is good, and he truly enjoys his work, which ultimately makes a good course great.
Corporate Valuation was an absolute blast. This particular course is taught by two awesome professors who each take half-semester shifts. I must admit that some students prefer one prof over the other, but I personally equally enjoyed both styles. Prof. Benninga’s dry humor and as-a-matter-of-fact delivery style fits well with the content of the course that he teaches, whereas Prof. Sarig’s high-energy classes and his enthusiastic personality are well suited for the second half of the semester when students tend to get overwhelmed with all the things on their calendars. I learned a million of new things during the semester, thanks to the great professors and an awesome learning team: I was lucky to be on a team with two amazing individuals: one – a former lawyer, the other – a Bain consultant (thanks, team!). Together we cranked out some great quality work.
Prof. Herring’s class was an eye opener on the issues in International Banking. The course is well-structured, well-paced and very insightful. The ability of the professor to organize discussions, his wealth of knowledge and stories based on regular personal interactions with the key people in the banking sector both in the US and internationally add to the overall high quality of the class. Again, I was lucky to be on a team with amazing people (most of them either have, are or will work for Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and CitiBank). Interesting detail: Prof. Herring used to be the Director of the Lauder Institute.
At Lauder, my Global Knowledge Lab team worked hard to finish our deliverable for our project on Green Buildings where we focused on creating a business plan for a global consulting firm focused on energy efficient real estate. And to think of it – how many opportunities in life does one have to write a business plan for a global consulting firm! Our team has benefitted the guidance from Wharton’s Prof. Amir Goldman of Susquehanna Capital and a Wharton alum Dr. Scott Snyder who runs his own consulting shop. GKL is a subject for an individual blog post, but overall, I think it is promising to be an extremely valuable part of Lauder experience.
As an Omnicom Fellow, I had the opportunity to work as a Teacher Assistant at Wharton, and I TA’d two half semester classes at the MBA level, and taught a 6-week seminar for the undergrads. This was a rewarding and exciting experience. I also got to meet Omnicom’s CFO, Mr. Randy Weisenburger.
All Lauder students are required to take two electives at the School of Arts and Sciences to graduate. I took an Advanced Business Chinese with Prof. Chiang. A delightful course for any serious language learner! This was a great addition to the Lauder’s superb Chinese language program. I should mention that I have taken the OPI again, and confirmed the fact that my language skills are at the level required for graduation so I will not have to do any of that testing this semester anymore.
Tomorrow, I will write a few words about the major social and extracurricular activities I was involved in.
Lauder Distinguished Lecture Series – a recent innovation at Wharton/Lauder
December 1, 2009 – 11:44 pmThe Lauder Institute is constantly on the forefront of innovation in education. In spring 2009, Prof. Mauro Guillen organized a hugely successful Wharton course on the recent crisis: the idea was to invite several professors from different departments to lecture on an issue that is related to the meltdown. It worked well, and Wharton has offered this course again in the fall.
This year the Lauder Institute has initiated yet another cool project called Lauder Distinguished Lecture Series. The series started last month with a wonderful presentation by Managing Director of Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs. There was a wine-and-cheese reception afterwards, where students could meet the speaker personally. The conversations ranged from banking to corporate life style to career advice. It was a great night.
Today I was pleasantly surprised when I received an email from Prof. Guillen announcing four more speakers that will participate in the Series next semester. All of them are very accomplished people, and the topics they will talk about have for the most part been identified. Here is an excerpt from the email:
1. Michael Silverstein
Senior Partner and Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group.
Will speak about his recent book, Women Want More: How to Capture Your Share of the World’s Largest, Fastest-Growing Market.
2. Martin Werner
Partner, and Mexico Office Head
Goldman Sachs
Former Deputy Finance Minister of Mexico
Will speak about emerging economies.
3. Joanna Barsh
Senior Partner，McKinsey &Co.
Will speak about her recent book How Remarkable Women Lead: The Breakthrough Model for Work and Life.
4. Allan Kwan
Venture Partner，Oak Investment Partners
Member of the Lauder Advisory Council
To me, this is an impressive beginning of what could potentially be another awesome tradition at Lauder! Needless to say, all the events are already on my iCal, prioritized as very important and synched to the iPhone.
Summer internships in the downturn: Wharton/Lauder advantage
November 14, 2009 – 7:08 pmSummer internship search is never easy, but it was especially tough to be hunting for a summer job in the midst of the worst recession of the century.
Fortunately, for those b-school applicants who are wondering if it is worth paying extra for the joint degree from Lauder, I have a lot of good (although arguably subjective) news. In my subjective view, the Lauder Institute does give its students extra coaching resources and practical leads to summer employment around the world, and I am a prime example of this.
Last May, in the midst of the global recession, ubiquitous cost-cutting, layoffs, pay cuts and a general situation where companies see little to no sense in hiring interns (what I call “corporate summer intern allergy”), I had two offers for competitively paid internships – both of them through Lauder network.
While Lauder students have access to all the resources at Wharton, there are additional Lauder-specific resources:
1. Summer immersion contacts
a) Corporate visits
During the Lauder summer immersion that takes place prior to Wharton core classes start in the first year, Lauderites have the unique opportunity to communicate face-to-face with senior executives of a whole array of companies. In the case of Chinese track 2010, we decided to visit a dozen companies: consulting, manufacturing, luxury retail, education services, private equity firms, banks, main-stream media, high-tech, Internet services. We visited world-known companies who are at the forefront of what they are doing, e.g. Philips, McKinsey, Baidu, Caijing Magazine, EF, etc.
b) Wharton and Wharton/Lauder Alumni and second-year students
It just so happens that wherever you go there are alumni from both Wharton and Wharton/Lauder many of whom understand the challenges you face and are actively involved in the Wharton community. Dialogue is often very informal and friendships are made at a party, dinner or over a pint of beer in a bar after work.
2. Global Knowledge Lab (GKL)
I have already blogged about this innovation at Lauder several months ago, but I have not mentioned that GKL is yet another opportunity to get contacts with companies you may be interested to work for. At least one Chinese track student worked at a GKL partner company this summer in China. I myself had a chance to work in the Middle East for a GKL partner company.
3. Estee Lauder Co.
Estee Lauder hires at least one marketing intern for its New York HQ every summer from the Lauder Institute: it is a highly competitive internship opportunity, and they are quite selective in who they interview, but it is a super cool and unique opportunity for those interested in luxury retail and marketing.
4. Alumni Grape Vine
Many Lauder alumni in hiring positions often require their hires to have the specific skill set they once acquired while at school themselves. The logical solution is to source this talent where it is abundant – Lauder. As a consequence, there was a considerable number of summer internship positions that our alumni looked to fill with Lauder students. I want to send special thanks to the board and the management of the Lauder Institute for having gone out of their way last spring to tap into their personal network and to further engage the Lauder alumni community in summer internship search for the students.
5. Contacts from other Lauder Institute Initiatives
There are seminars, speech series, Lauder-specific company presentations (or Employer Information Sessions) that are organized at the Lauder Institute. These events often provide a unique opportunity to make contacts with very interesting and influential people. While I do not know of any cases where these contacts led to summer employment per se, I have experienced the exceptional quality of career advice that is available through this interaction. I am grateful to all the people who have given me guidance and advice last spring.
These extras generated a large number of real employment opportunities last spring–a true competitive advantage and an extra value add of the Lauder degree.
Watching Chinese TV on PC and Mac
October 20, 2009 – 2:30 amOne of the best ways to watch Chinese TV on Windows machines is via an program called CCTV Box available for free from China Central Television: http://cctvbox.cctv.com
All the channels are built-in, and the number of available TV channels is impressive.
For Mac users, there is also a free solution: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ (This solution will work on Windows, too.)
After installation, start the program, click on File > Open network, then paste one of the following mms:// feeds in the dialog window when prompted:
1. CCTV 1 General: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv1
2. CCTV 2 Finance: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv2
3. CCTV 3 Arts: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv3
4. CCTV 4 International (Chinese): mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv4
5. CCTV 5 Sports: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv5
6. CCTV 6 Movies: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv6
7. CCTV 7 Agriculture: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv7
8. CCTV 8 TV Series: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv8
9. CCTV 9 International (English): mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv9
10. CCTV 10 Science and education: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv10
11. CCTV 11 Chinese opera: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv11
12. CCTV 12 Society and law: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctv12
13. CCTV News: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctvnews
14. CCTV Music: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctvmusic
15. CCTV HD: mms://cctv-live-cctv1.wm.llnwd.net/cctv_live_cctvhd
Enjoy!
Why Wharton? Why now?
October 16, 2009 – 10:10 pmThroughout my time at Wharton/Lauder, quite a few people have approached me with questions about their applications to business schools. I have never refused to offer advice and help, but what I have noticed is that a large number of people with very strong profiles actually do not know or cannot explain why they have chosen to apply to Wharton beyond a simple “it is a great school”.
So why should you apply to Wharton, or why should you apply to a joint-degree program like Wharton/Lauder?
Frankly, there cannot be a single answer to these questions. What’s more, I think, everyone will and should have a different answer as every person is unique. Wharton is a big and exciting place where one may find absolutely endless possibilities, so which of these infinite vistas attract a particular applicant is absolutely and solely the choice of the individual in question.
A more important question is about one’s individual goals, why they are significant, and how education at a particular school could help achieve them at this point in time. What is the added value that one can potentially bring to the community at Wharton and beyond?
So why Wharton, Wharton/Lauder, Wharton/SAIS, Wharton/HBS, Wharton/Healthcare? — Come visit, talk to students and admissions officers, meet professors, use other channels to find out what the school has on offer and decide how these offerings fit your tastes and goals, and you will surely have your answer
At Wharton Admissions Event on October 16, 2009
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Two books on China I disagree with
October 6, 2009 – 7:02 pmIn the recent weeks I have observed two conflicting views on China: one is the look at China by an ethnic Chinese from the US, and the other is by a group of Chinese authors from Mainland. Although, it is clear that both views have some truth in them, I refuse to accept either of the two.
I have just had an opportunity to hear the opinion of Mr. Gordon Chang (the author of the controversial book called “The coming Collapse of China”) on what the future will bring to China and why. He spoke today in front of a fairly large group of students and professors at UPenn.
I do not agree with Mr. Chang that China will collapse in the next two years, and that Beijing is on the road to hell with its approach to foreign policy of aggravating the international community, while pursuing short-term gains that are detrimental in the long term.
My view is that China is becoming much smarter and more careful in its policies in general, and it is a big positive force in the world overall. Many people might not like a new kid on the block of international politics and trade, and it may be one of the reasons why there is so much opposition to China when it flexes its muscles and is not ashamed to show it has been building strength (as during the recent military parade).
Russia is often in the same boat with China in this respect. It is at the same time more aggressive and less oblique in its dealings with the world and is thus more easily perceived as a danger and an enemy. In this respect, Russian politicians have a lot to learn from their Chinese colleagues.
However, there are certain things that do make sense in Mr. Chang’s view. Inside China, the growing nationalism is potentially detrimental if left unchecked, and on the international arena, China’s stance on the Iranian nuclear program is a potential pandora box, too. Both are very pragmatic approaches, but there is a difference between short-term and long-term pragmatism.
On the other hand, if there is one book that left a bad taste in my mouth it was the recent best seller in China called “Unhappy China”. I think it is a harmful publication that does no good to the image of China as a peaceful, thoughtful and mature force. Unhappy China sends a wrong signal to the world by contradicting the principles of harmonious development and neutrality. In a way, this book is a collection of supporting arguments to Mr. Gordon’s statements.
Note: I found the copy online, so I am not sure if this electronic publication violates any copyright. If it is an illegal publication, feel free to point out, and I will remove the link.
One final thought: Amazon should sell “Unhappy China” and “The coming Collapse of China” in a special “you-thought-you-were-confused” bundle.
Today’s speech at Wharton: CEO of Nissan & Renault
September 29, 2009 – 12:38 amWharton’s Speaker Series is superb and I enjoy listening to some of the best business minds in the world.
Earlier today, the CEO of Nissan & Renault, Mr. Carlos Ghosn was talking about his view of what cars will one day become (electric and battery-powered) and how the new technology will naturally substitute the gas-guzzling vehicles of today.
I won’t be arguing with him as it is clear to me that there is enough momentum right now to develop an alternative to the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. This summer, for example, I saw a Tesla car in action – awesome stuff!
What I thought of after the speech was the drastic dissonance of managerial thought of automobile manufacturers in the world with those in Russia. While all the major auto makers in the US, Asia and Europe seem to be actively working on all sorts of alternative vehicles (Toyota, Honda, GM, BMW, and even China’s BYD – originally a battery company -work hard to deliver a breakthrough in e-vehicle technology), Russian government continues to spend billions of rubles to help VAZ manufacture its “classic” models, i.e. the “Lada” sedans poorly designed and made in the Soviet 80’s.
Something would definitely benefit from a fundamental change there!
Update. October 6, 2009
AvtoVAZ is now a focus of debate as it is considered “a black hole” by Mr. Vladimir Putin’s government. Reuters ran a nice article on what the current situation is like: http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-42690020090924?sp=true
When I read this (plans to restructure and slash jobs, etc), I was desperately looking to read something in the lines of “we’ll innovate like madmen, and make a cool-looking, energy-efficient and safe car everyone in the world will want to buy, while at the same time learning and adopting the best operations practices that exist nowadays”. The closest to that was “we’ll cooperate with Renault”, but I do not believe that Renault will be the solution to VAZ’s problems. In my view, Lada’s most serious problem has always been its outdated and uncompetitive product line.
Chinese language learning resources for OPI and beyond
August 10, 2009 – 12:08 amHow does one prepare for the OPI test? I hear that preparation for different languages could be a little different, but in general, one needs to hit the following bases:
1. Practice structured responses. Every time you answer a question, have a simple logical outline in mind and follow it step by step.
2. Practice descriptive monologue. Try to describe in the target language how you put on your suit in the morning, or describe your favorite recipe, or how to calculate the beta of a stock, or the all-time favorite of German-language OPI testers – how to tie a shoe lace.
3. Practice abstract narrative responses. Be able to talk about things that are abstract: your view on some recent news, or what you think of a certain issue, e.g. the problem of Colorado beetles and yield of potato fields in China, or share your view on the Space Shuttle vs. Buran program.
4. Ramp up your vocabulary. A good rule of thumb: when working on your vocabulary it is nice to always know at least two synonyms to describe one thing. Redundancy eats right into your fluency, and therefore hurts your OPI performance.
5. Diversify grammatical range and work on grammatical accuracy.
6. Work on your rhythm: intonation within a sentence is just one side of the story. A natural speaker manages intonation and rhythm well on a larger scale, too. Get rid of all the uhhm’s, huh’s and other silence fillers – they kill the rhythm.
Interview with German Sterligov
July 12, 2009 – 9:50 pmI was procrastinating today and the interview on Russia.ru with German Sterligov – a strange guy, but a marvelous entrepreneur – brought memories back. The video in its entirety is in Russian:
Mr. Sterligov is interviewed by this correspondent who obviously has no idea about business or how it works. In his mind, good business must be a very sophisticated, mind-boggling labyrinth of some sort.
I like the part where in the midst of the interview the interviewer exclaims that “Everything is just too simple for you, Mr. Sterligov–dial a number, get capital, start a business, it is never that simple in real life!” So German says “Well, it IS actually the only way, there is no other way.”
I remember I used about $200 of my savings (and that was everything I had at that time) to start my first business, and a month later I had over $1000 of pure profit in my pocket. I remember the incredible feeling of success – it was real, honest money, and it was all mine to the last penny! The business model was extremely simple, my clients–not sophisticated, but the service I offered was what they needed at the price they could afford.
At Wharton, I have learned that some of the most effective ideas are actually very simple. Take OPIM (acronym used for Operations Management) for example, lots of things revolve around a brilliant, yet very simple Little’s Law. Pr. Lai who taught OPIM in cluster 4 this spring, made it even simpler: I=RT (I Remember That) and easier to digest and use in practice. One of my friends from Wharton is using it now to optimize work schedules and hiring plans for stores in a large supermarket chain, for example.
While I do not agree with German Sterligov that being simple is “the only way”, I also do not agree with the interviewer dude claiming that “it is never that simple in real life”. The truth of the matter is you do not have to be too complex to be competitive and make a good profit!
A cool Lauder photoalbum
May 26, 2009 – 12:05 amI stumbled upon a very thorough and organized online photo album by a 2004 Wharton/Lauder grad. This is an awesome depiction of the excitement and fun that the Wharton School and the Lauder Institute continue to be. http://public.fotki.com/DengKohno/ I am amazed at the diversity of places and activities these guys have had at Wharton.
Lauder Summer immersion: Chinese language learning
May 24, 2009 – 9:49 pmAt the Lauder Institute one has to fulfill stringent language proficiency requirements: first, in order to be admitted all applicants have to show an advanced level as measured by the Oral Proficiency Test administered by Language Testing Intenational; then once admitted, a rating of Superior on the OPI is required to graduate. For some reason, at Lauder everyone refers to these ratings on a numerical scale: Advanced High is referred to as “2+” and Superior is a “3″ – and one needs a “3″ or higher to get the MA in International Studies. We take the OPI once every semester. After a Lauderite gets a “3″, he or she needs to maintain that level till graduation.
To illustrate what these numbers and ratings stand for, I did a search on OPI, and it seems that in order to qualify as a court interpreter in some parts of the US, one needs an Advanced (in the 2’s) on OPI.
I must mention that Chinese language training at Lauder is top notch. Not only does one get to spend over two months in China over the course of two years, we also have absolutely wonderful native language instructors who love what they do.
During the summer immersion in China, the language program is intense and diverse. Last summer, we had ample resources to study Chinese: small groups of 2 to 6 students, 6 hours of class time per day, lectures on different topics by outside professors and professionals, one-on-one study sessions with our professors and instructors, mock OPI interviews which were video recorded and then thoroughly analyzed with the professors, optional personal language tutoring with Beijing Foreign Studies University’s graduates specializing in Chinese as Second Language teaching, real-time presentations during the numerous corporate visits, and of course, Chinese media available 24/7.
In Beijing we had a wonderful opportunity to learn from a wide pool of experienced and knowledgeable teachers from BFSU on a daily basis.
Here are some pictures of BFSU’s campus where you can see the Foreign Student’s Dorm (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10575085) and the Yifu Building (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10574963) where we had most of our classes last summer.
The level of the outside professors and professionals I mentioned above commands a demanding preparation for their visits, and that kept the Chinese track on their toes last year. For instance in June and July, 2008 we had the honor of learning about China’s stock market and banking system from leading experts in Finance and Banking from Shanghai Jiaotong University who routinely consult top officials of Shanghai. While in Beijing, we finished a week-long discussion of matters pertaining to the Olympic Games with a round table with one of the senior members of the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee (BOOC).
At the same time, the “culturally challenged” (this term that identifies Lauder students originated in 2008 Wharton Follies) often communicate between themselves in their track language, so last summer Chinese trackers most often than not talked to one another in Mandarin. We continue to use Mandarin in our day-to-day communication in Philadelphia, too.
Having spent fifteen years actively learning and translating from/into Mandarin, I am blessed to be surrounded by people as passionate about the Chinese language and culture as my fellow Chinese trackers at the Lauder Institute. It is a joy to be in this environment.
School rings
May 12, 2009 – 7:52 pmA couple of days ago, while talking to a good friend of mine from Jamaica, I noticed an MIT class ring on her necklace. I have never seen anyone wear a Wharton school ring – it is just not something people do here. I hear, at other business schools it is more of a tradition, but at Wharton, Josten’s and its competitor friends have almost no presence.
At the same time, people like to wear prep. I noticed it last year, and this year when it became warm again, the scene repeats: the campus is full of preppy looking kids flip-flopping around in expensive casuals. Oh, and pink is in big time.
The First Year is Over
May 12, 2009 – 7:20 pmFinally, I have some time to write about Wharton and Lauder!
All the exams are over, tickets booked and bags packed – the summer internship awaits. It is an exciting time, indeed.
I stopped by the Lauder Institute today to pick up a few things at the office, and I saw all these new students sitting around the Lauder Lounge and in the Library on the new couch (Such was the gift from Lauder class of 2009; now the power naps will be much more comfortable), trying to finish their reading for the Strategy class. Lauder class of 2011 has just started their classes – Unbelievable, I thought, It has been a year already! It flew by like no year before it, and I think the next year will feel just as fast or even faster. Looking back on my first-year experience at Wharton/Lauder, it has been the best time ever. This school has been everything I wished it could be and much, much more!
At the same time, I met a few second years today who are pretty much done with everything, and busy themselves moving, wrapping things up on campus, etc. It is sad to see them leave, but at the same time I am truly happy for them.
Article in China Economic Review
April 10, 2009 – 5:49 pmGoogling my name leads to an article China Economic Review has published about foreign managers’ employment prospects in China: http://www.chinaeconomicreview.com/cer/2009_03/Need_not_apply.html
The article is realistic and at places pessimistic, but it is nevertheless flattering to read that some employers may see me as a dream MBA hire. Hmm…
Since I am on the topic of articles, Knowledge @ Wharton is going to publish ALL the research papers Lauder students wrote last year during their summer immersion. They thought the quality of our research and writing was THAT good. Myself and several other Chinese trackers were researching the topic of investments in renewable energy in China.
Updated May 12, 2009:
All the Lauder articles are now available on Knowledge@Wharton in a special and first-ever Lauder Global Business Insight Report 2009.
Patagonia: Part 2
April 8, 2009 – 1:38 pmOur venture was in two countries: our “comfortable” base was in Ushuaia, Argentina, but most of the hiking, rock climbing and kayaking was done on the Navarino Island in Chile.
In the morning of the first day the main task was to cross the Beagle Channel, transfer to the base camp and get prepared for several days of hiking in the mountains.
Few people know that crossing the Beagle from Ushuaia is subject to constraints: for security reasons, the Chilean side prohibits boats with more than 12 people on them from docking in Puerto Navarino. That means that we could not just get on a big boat and arrive in one big team. Instead, we had to make several trips on three small boats. This took a bit of time, but I think the Vertical, who was responsible for the logistics of the trip, has done a decent job at organizing and managing this. As the day was quite chilly, the HOT coffee and tea prepared for us on the Chilean side in Puerto Navarino was very appreciated – a small thing, I admit, but it added a lot of comfort.
When we had all the people onshore in Chile the first task was to set sail on a big schooner called “Victoria” to a lagoon where indigenous people used to live.
To me it was an important experience, as I witnessed how the randomly selected group of six completely different people that I was a part of transformed into a team on that boat. The key to that was that we were very active and involved in steering the vessel. We became instrumental as all the communication on the boat between the skipper who did not understand English and the passengers-turned-crew was done via the interpreter on our team (yes, a Lauder guy, too). We discovered that we were all very open and sincere people, and this allowed us to build an atmosphere of support and trust by encouraging and helping each other. This had an amazing power – strong enough to help some of us overcome the fear of heights.
Continued on May 11, 2009
What endured afterward was four days of hard-core trekking in the mountains with the team. The way to the base camp was the most difficult part — not just physically, but also psychologically. Our backpacks were loaded with (A LOT OF) gear, food, water and whatnot and most of us have not trekked in the mountains in quite a while.
While the day on the boat was important for establishing the team spirit and for initial bonding, the first day in the mountains was really the key to finding practical ways of finding solutions under stress. We got tired and cranky and crisis resolution became a very useful skill. Do we go east or west? Up or down? Simple questions like that are not so easily answered when you have a 100 pounds of extra weight in the backpack.
I was amazed at how well we worked together! Everyone on the the team was flexible and respectful of others so we were able to overcome our personal differences and capitalize on each others’ strengths. The more we hiked the more we learned about each other, and this was a great part of the experience: not only did we get to know what our professional and personal backgrounds were, we also learned about each others’ true characters and personalities. It is amazing that when a person is not in his or her comfort zone for an extended period of time, his or her personality is seen as if through a magnifying glass.
We even thought that trips like this should be more widely used in personnel selection and screening: say, a week’s worth of hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains would tell it all about the candidates for a particular management position. An HR manager would then get a complete, unbiased portrait of every single candidate in no time at all. Oh well, I am sure someone somewhere is already doing this sort of stuff.
What did I discover about my team? Well, in addition to being super intelligent, they are amazingly happy, fun, honest, strong and endlessly wise people. Their wisdom and happiness made the rock climbing, hiking, living in tents, cooking together, endless discussions, stories and jokes so much more meaningful! To sum it all up, I am truly happy that I made such good friends in such a unique and beautiful place like Patagonia. My Wharton Leadership Venture has been an amazing experience!
Wharton Leaderhip Venture in Patagonia, 2009. Part 1
April 5, 2009 – 12:37 pmThe leadership venture in Patagonia was absolutely awesome!
From my side, a lot went into the planning of the trip as I had to get in shape, buy/borrow all the gear, arrange two visas and somehow finance it all.
Getting in shape had been in my plans for over six months. Unfortunately, I abandoned my regular exercise routine in May last year so getting ready for the Leadership Venture was a great way to get back to my usual healthy life style. This has been a transformational experience: I discovered that a simple thing like a morning run with a friend or two adds a ton to the quality of life. I know it is common knowledge and all, but reading and hearing about it is not the same as experiencing it.
Wharton Leadership Development program offered a lot of advice and guidance on how to gear up for the trip. The process is facilitated by Venture Fellows – specially trained second-year students who have been on at least one Venture themselves – who are assigned to a group of venture participants. They ran scheduled gear checks, and one-on-one counseling sessions. All in all, Wharton’s Venture Fellows did a great job: thanks to their advice I was able to choose gear that was useful, compact and light. This proved to be essential in the wilderness of Patagonia.
Financing the venture was easier for me than for many venture participants, thanks to the generosity of the Behrman family who established a special Behrman Scholarship to facilitate leadership development at Wharton. I am truly honored to have been selected as one of the first recipients of the scholarship.
My trip to the end of the world began on March 6th, right after the final Managerial Accounting exam (I did very well in that!). I flew Continental from Philadelphia to Buenos Aires, and frankly, I was pleasantly surprised by a great in-flight service the airline delivered. They now top my list of US airlines and next time I fly to Latin America, I will try to book a flight with Continental Airlines. In Buenos Aires airport I met up with several Wharton MBA’s who had booked the same flight to Ushuaia – the closest city to the South Pole in the world. That’s where our six-day adventure began.
On the night of March 7th, when everyone arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina, Wharton MBA’s lodged in two nice hotels; at dinner the Venture Fellows ran an orientation, explained the plan and logistics for the next day, introduced us to our guides from Vertical and then we split into teams of six. I was selected to be the first Leader of the Day in my team, which code-named itself “Team Impulse” the next morning.
That’s it for now.
Photos from the Wharton Leadership Venture to Patagonia, March 2009
New students
March 30, 2009 – 10:44 pmIt has been a while since I last updated the blog, and out of all the news related to the Wharton/Lauder program to share with the world, the most exciting to me is that the Lauder Institute’s incoming class of 2011 will be composed of super diverse and incredibly achieved people. Needless to say, many of them have reached out to me and my classmates for advice since the start of the application period. It has been a pleasure communicating with so many candidates, and I am happy for those who got accepted to the program this year: from what I hear it has been an extremely competitive applicant pool so getting in has probably never been harder. It will certainly be exciting to meet all of the incoming students in May when they start the incredible Lauder journey.
As for the Chinese track, it will not be as big as the Class 2010, but it will still have a considerable weight. There will be some changes this year to the Chinese summer immersion, as the sequence of events will be different this time around. The Chinese trackers will start their immersion in Beijing and finish it in Shanghai. The reason for this is the Wharton Global Forum that will take place on June 13th in Beijing. Of course, Lauder has gone out of its way to make sure the students get another amazing opportunity to learn and network during the summer immersion!
More updates and changes
January 30, 2009 – 1:04 amIt seems that anything China does outside its borders attracts a lot of attention. A few journalists approached me regarding the Shanghai Government Job Fair in New York. Most of them seem to be interested in exploring the reasons why very few non-Chinese candidates attended the fair. While my opinion is documented in this blog, some asked to clarify, for example, if I had ever been discriminated against at a workplace in China. I really cannot recall any such issues whatsoever, and I do not want to reinforce any scary myths about the PRC that are circulating in some Western media.
My view remains unchanged: I am convinced that since there is an enormous resource of talent in the West, China will make deliberate attempts at attracting it, and it will get much better at doing so with time.
The New York Times even spared some ink to print a photo of the event on the front page of the business section. Ironically, depicted in the background there is me being interviewed by Thomson Reuters. Also, a fellow Chinese tracker has discovered that the three expats in the video accompanying that article, i.e. Tom Leggett, Nick Topjian and Liz Aab happen to be close friends of current Lauder students.
My plans for the Lauder Institute Global Knowledge Lab research project have changed as I decided against researching the Sovereign Wealth Funds, and instead joined the so-called “Green Buildings” project team. For this project, the Lauder Institute is cooperating with Dr. Ali Malkawi and his Penn-Tsinghua T.C. Chan Center For Building Simulation And Energy Studies. Dr. Malkawi is an energizing intellectual with a good business acumen, in addition there are six Wharton/Lauder MBA/MA students on our team spanning Arabic, Chinese and Portuguese tracks, and it seems that our project might take us to the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Latin America. We are currently working on the structural part of our research, and reading up on such issues as energy efficiency, environmentally sustainable architecture, clean materials, carbon trading, real estate law, etc. It is a lot of work, and it is really fun!
Work is fun, right?
Well, at Wharton/Lauder one can certainly choose to do fun work.
Back to blog
January 29, 2009 – 2:00 amThe past several weeks surely moved fast! Lots of things are happening right now as I am in the middle of the Designated Interview Period (DIP). I am constantly adding bits and pieces to the long-promised post about my attempt at career change, but I realize it is still too early to push the “publish” button. All I can say now is that changing careers at Wharton/Lauder is extremely time-consuming, but very possible.
Since I have had no time for blogging, for the next several days I will be making up for the long silence with some highlights.
First, all my core classes this semester are super good. I love Pr. Jeremy Siegel’s Macroeconomics class. The class went for over 2400 points on the Course Auction back in Quarter 2, but it is definitely worth the expense. Those who were not fortunate in the bidding process come and listen to Pr. Siegel’s famous market recap for the first 30 minutes of the class, during which they stand in the isles. Needless to say, the auditorium 351 at the Steinberg-Dietrich Hall is always fully packed! I am also taking Finance 601 with Pr. Kaufold, and he makes the subject so clear – every class is a joy. Plus, my Chinese classes at Lauder are a source of an immense satisfaction as always. Generally speaking, I am enjoying all of my courses a lot, and it is clear that the knowledge and skills foundation I built in the first semester is what makes this semester’s classes so clear and fun. Hard work always pays off, right?
Well, at Wharton it certainly always does.
Unfair Job Fair
December 18, 2008 – 11:27 amEarly in December, 2008 the organizers of the ‘2008 Shanghai Overseas Job Fair for Financial Professionals‘ advertised the event at Wharton through the Wharton’s Greater China Club. A bunch of people, including myself, went to New York on December 13 specifically for this job fair that should have been called ‘2008 Shanghai Overseas Job Fair for Overseas Chinese Who Had Lost Their Finance Jobs On Wall Street’.
The logistics of the event were outsourced to a company called ‘Triway‘ and I feel this was somewhat of a major mistake, but regardless, one thing this company did very well was pooling the finance professionals to the event. So about a thousand of these seasoned professionals from Wall Street were jammed into two small halls of the Sheraton Laguardia and had to stand in lines up to 50 people deep to have a couple of minutes with a company representative or an unrelated volunteer to drop the CV.
The fair was not specifically designed for MBA students so I am now wondering why Wharton and other business school students had been invited at all: some people came all the way from Emory Goizueta, and frankly, I felt sorry for them because to me, treating MBA’s this way was very unfair.
Nevertheless, as I am not looking for jobs in Finance (my focus is consulting) and went to New York to network and have fun, I actually found the long lines to be a great networking opportunity. I met a lot of great people who were eager to talk and exchange business cards. I even got interviewed by a reporter from Thomson Reuters.
Most importantly, it was a nice and eye-opening learning experience in that the general conclusion both I and my Wharton friends made is that for MBA’s from top schools to make a career in China it is best to stick with positions at big multinationals, foreign banks or any 外资企业 (i.e. foreign enterprises) or foreign government organizations. The key word is “foreign”.
After the job fair, I am firmly convinced that Chinese companies do not know what to do with overseas talent, yet. They generally do not know how to hire the overseas professionals or see much value in hiring such, too. So for non-Chinese MBA’s, there seems to be absolutely no future at a Chinese-owned company in China. At the same time, PRC has already benefited from the skills and managerial talent that expatriate managers contributed in the 80’s and the 90’s so in this context the job fair narrowly tailored only for the Chinese professionals whose jobs are at risk in the USA looks strange.
Compare that to the Korean or Japanese counterparts, and you’ll find that the approach is drastically different in that both the Koreans and the Japanese have long realized the importance of bringing in foreign talent and developing it. For example, Samsung is now substituting many of its country and regional managers and C-level executives overseas with non-Koreans. They even have a special Samsung Global Strategy Group designed for the purpose of developing such top-level talent within the company.
For the Chinese nationals who are doing their MBA’s at the top American schools now and are looking to go back to China, the situation is different, but most of the people I know are targeting multinationals anyways. Working for a Western company is generally more rewarding, they say. It just so happens that the work environment, career prospects and remuneration are still better there.
While I have no doubt that the time will come when this will no longer be true in China because the leadership of most successful and truly global Chinese companies already accepts the fact that “in a world with just one time zone–’now’–business must source materials, innovation, talent, logistics, infrastructure and production wherever they are best available’ (Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo). Right now the multinationals seem to be winning the battle for available MBA talent.
Next post
I am a career switcher so I will talk about switching from applied linguistics and education to consulting. Tough one!
Why Wharton MBA’s work for free
December 17, 2008 – 3:23 pmAt Wharton it does not take long to realize that one has to prioritize. There are many events in the making all the time so it is important to decide whether you want to participate as an organizer because the opportunities to get involved on the organizational side of events and conferences are plentiful (and so is the amount of coursework!), but your time is limited.
The absolute majority of events at Wharton are volunteer-driven. Students run pretty much everything, and the fact that nobody gets paid for the enormous amounts of work is cool because enthusiasm is generally a more powerful motivator than money. Wharton students are extremely enthusiastic about what they do, and so they do things extremely well. Generally speaking, Wharton MBA’s are very competitive and aggressive individually, and at the same time, we work super well on teams. This combination of enthusiasm, competitiveness, collaboration and desire to make the world a better place adds to the power of the constructive energy flowing in the halls of the school.
So how does one get involved at Wharton? For those of us who want to be part of the drive, there are many options: among other things, one can take positions at cohort or club levels or take part in organizing an event.
At cohort level, there are elected positions that one has to run for in the beginning of Quarter 1. These range from roles like Ethics Representative or Academic Representative to Cohort Photographer. In some cohorts there is very little competition for these positions, and in others the competition could be quite intense like it was in my Cohort L in September 2008.
At club level, there are many opportunities as well. One can run for a position of a club president or an officer of some sort. For example, I serve as a Vice President Communications at the Greater China Club. A very good friend of mine from the Chinese track at Lauder seems to have taken on every available Club Presidency out there, and that of course keeps him busy and makes him happy. Club positions are filled by voting so candidates have to think of an agenda, and present it to the fellow club members at a club meeting. Voting is done online via Wharton’s state-of-the-art intranet system called web cafe, where each of the clubs has a presence.
Clubs organize all sorts of conferences, e.g. the Wharton General Management Conference, the Wharton Consulting Conference, etc — all of these are a great way to get involved, learn and network. This semester, I volunteered for the Comedy Club Night (this was seriously really fun!), Net Impact Conference which was a huge success, and for the Wharton Consulting Conference which was not as big a success story due to limited attendance. Nevertheless, as a volunteer I gained a great lot from the conferences both in terms of knowledge, and in terms of personal network.
Lauder students have some exclusive opportunities to get involved, too. For example, there are Lauder-specific positions available to first-year students, e.g. our amazing Social Chairs organize several great social events every year, e.g. the Day at the Beach in the fall, the Day in the Snow in winter, the Christmas Party, Lauder dinners, etc.
Lauder Institute’s Global Knowledge Lab projects are also an opportunity to make an impact: some of the projects, especially those administered in collaboration with the Small Business Development Center, are specifically designed to assist particular businesses or companies overseas.
This year, during summer immersions Lauder students hosted several receptions around the globe for Wharton and Lauder alumni as well as for the incoming Wharton class. The tremendous success of the events this summer makes me believe this will be a tradition that will continue next year, too.
Winter break admissions events
During the winter break that has begun today we will host Lauder coffee chats in several countries for prospective students. I am heading to Toronto, Canada and I will be hosting the Ontario coffee chat there on December 28 from 6.00 to 8.00PM at The Keg Steakhouse on 2201 Yonge St, Toronto, ON so come by if you are around.
In addition to the Wharton/Lauder event on December 28, there will be another event in Toronto hosted by the Canada Club on Thursday, December 18, 6-8pm, Duke of Westminster inside First Canadian Place, 77 Adelaide St West. Unfortunately, I will still be in Philadelphia on Thursday, but I am sure that it will be a great event so tell your friends, mark your calendar and be sure to attend.
Next post
I will share my experiences at the 2008 Shanghai Overseas Job Fair For Finance Professionals in New York.
Innovating résumé
December 14, 2008 – 4:58 pmIn the past few weeks, most students at Wharton have been filling employers’ email boxes with their cover letters and résumés. I have been creative: there must be several dozen different versions of my curriculum vitae and an equal number of cover letters on my hard drive now. Internships will be hard to come by this year so precision and attention to details are key.
Meanwhile, one morning I opened my mailbox and out popped a letter from China that ultimately made me update my résumé. This was from my patent attorney from Boss & Young’s Beijing office notifying me of the successful registration of my patent in China. Here’s how Chinese patents look like:
So I am officially an inventor now. My “Dynamic presentation document display board” will be manufactured next year in China.
People often ask what exactly made me invent the display system and patent it (Patents are expensive!) my answer is “Necessity and chance.” I could not find a solution to my need among existing technological options so I invented my own. My solution turned out to be so good that when one person, who happened to own a factory that produced similar category of products, accidentally walked by my office in China on one cold December afternoon and saw my prototype he immediately offered to buy the invention if I were to patent it. I filed a patent application with the China Intellectual Property Agency 18 months ago, and while I was busy applying to business schools, moving from one continent to another, etc. the beureaucratic machine in Beijing was slowly chewing over my claim. Now that all the paperwork is over, my lawyers are working on a patent transfer or licensing agreement which will allow the manufacturer to lawfully use the patent to manufacture a series of different products.
Meanwhile my résumé has changed to include “Patents: China patent “Dynamic presentation document display board” at the bottom of the page.
Cool design
If you are interested in design, do have a look at Art Lebedev Studio- they are my favorite. I enjoy their ultra minimalist, super practical and thoughtfully meticulous approach to design which allows them to create no-nonsense objects, websites, illustrations, etc. If you love cool gadgets, they have an online shop that sells a lot of designer items. Check out their “Mandership” blog, especially the article about the whereabouts of the original copy of the American Declaration of Independence and some of its font design features is something very few people in the USA know about.
Next post
I will finally set to write about volunteering opportunities at Wharton/Lauder: there is a million ways to get involved as a volunteer.
Language and job search: it takes two to tango
November 14, 2008 – 10:39 pmAt Wharton, you quite often hear hiring managers at Employer Information Sessions (EIS’s) say something like ‘If anybody here speaks [your language of choice], please talk to [name of a person in charge of international recruiting]‘. At the same time, clusters of eager Wharton/Lauder students are quite often spotted around the international recruiting officers, and frankly, there seems to be very little competition.
One of the reasons why the overseas positions are a different ball of game is language: as in foreign language. While most people who come to business schools have been abroad on vacation, or have made short business trips to distant corners of the world, many employers are looking for long-term international exposure and a proven track-record of achievement in foreign lands.
In this regard, Wharton/Lauder students are a serious competition: we are an exceptional mix of people who have worked, studied and traveled extensively overseas. We as a group bring to the table a significant international management expertise, cultural adaptability and awareness, compelling linguistic fluency (most people speak at least two foreign languages) and broad international and American networks. A good illustration of the competitiveness of the Lauder students is our Japanese trackers who two weeks after the recruitment started have each secured several job offers for this summer. Not bad at all, especially given the current situation on the job market.
Needless to say, Lauder is all about globalization, international management, linking domestic and foreign markets and just about anything related to transnational business activity. Quite frankly, this is a great place to be in as more and more companies realize that fluency in a foreign language and international experience is a necessity for modern managers.
In my opinion, foreign language and international management will one day become a standard requirement at most business schools. Give it 20 years max. I can also predict that the graduates from the Lauder program will one day become a unique and elite source of managerial talent for multinationals. Another prognosis I can make now is that more business schools will start similar programs to satisfy the demand. In fact, some schools have already started doing this and quite pride themselves in having done so, while at other business schools speaking at least two languages is an everyday necessity and an absolute must. To me, this trend is quite clear.
An observation I made on Thursday during Pr. Mauro Guillén class made me think about the broadness of the Lauder Institute’s outreach. In his PowerPoint deck he used the term “Lauder countries”, i.e. countries where the Lauder Institute’s languages are spoken. Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish cover pretty much all of the developed and most of the developing world. While I was amused by the simplicity and descriptiveness of the term, I also thought that no other business school program in the entire world offers the incredible diversity of languages or the depth of regional studies and broadness of international studies as the Lauder Institute.
Next post
My next post will be about volunteering and innovation both at Wharton and in my life (although I no longer see the difference between the two).
Speakers: America’s fluency vs. China’s stiffness
November 8, 2008 – 5:20 amSpeakers
Modern business world is an environment where communicating one’s thoughts in a clear and compelling way is a must. During the past several weeks I have observed a whole lot of different types of speaker here and while most presenters tend to be OK, some are definite outliers: either super good or just plain bad. The former are represented by Secretary Chertoff whose energizing crystal clear speech made a lasting impression on me—I would like to be a speaker like him one day—while the latter are exemplified by His Excellency Ambassador of China to the United States whose badly (if at all) rehearsed reading verbatim in the worst traditions of the Soviet apparatchiks sent a part of the audience into a deep slumber. The main lessons I have learned from the Ambassador’s speech were to practice public speaking more and NEVER read verbatim – the People’s Republic of China never looked bleaker in my eyes than after the boring Ambassador’s reading.
While Chertoff’s special service agents were the epitome of professionalism and efficiency as the Secretary himself, the Ambassador’s entourage came through as somewhat rude and disrespectful of their boss: while he was putting Penn professors to sleep with the uninspiring speech, his bureaucratic monotone in the ancient auditorium of Penn Law School was suddenly interrupted by a screechy sound of a cheesy Chinese pop song—one of the guys from the Chinese embassy did not turn off his cell phone.
Back in 1995 I was fortunate to participate in World Learning Inc.’s Ambassador Project in an elementary school in Sparta, NJ: I spent about an hour with a class of 6 year-olds telling them Russian tales and teaching them games I used to play as a kid. It was fun! The whole experience made me think about an individual’s role in representing his or her country around the world: every time an individual steps on a foreign soil, people around him make inferences about his country based on his behavior so, in effect, the individual becomes an ‘unofficial ambassador’ which is a big responsibility. Too bad the clerks from the Chinese embassy do not seem to fully understand this simple concept.
Although the Q and A session (photo above) was a bit more lively than the speech itself, the Ambassador’s perfect command of the English language was not enough to do all the necessary damage control.
I love China, and I truly hope that in the future all Chinese diplomats and politicians will be just as interesting to listen to as Premier Wen Jiabao.
Leadership Ventures
In March, I am going on a Wharton Leadership Venture to Patagonia. This is promising to be a great trip with a bunch of exciting people from Wharton and the Vertical – an organization that specializes in organizing this type of experiential learning undertakings in the outdoors.
A Leadership Venture is an exercise at leadership in an outdoor setting. It is designed as a test of endurance: first, a person’s physical stamina is brought to exhaustion through several days of intense trekking in wilderness, second, this exhausted individual is then put in a situation where he or she has to lead a bunch of equally exhausted class mates. Hardcore and masochistic as it sounds, people nevertheless enjoy doing these ventures as they provide a unique opportunity to challenge yourself and develop your leadership skills in an unusual way. Destinations where a Leadership Venture can take a Wharton MBA range from the glaciers of Antarctica (a few of my friends are going there in December) to the forests of Argentina and Chile.
Here’s a quote from the Vertical’s website that sheds more light on what this is all about:
‘A Leadership Expedition is a structured learning experience through which participants improve their leadership and teamwork skills. The goal is to provide them with opportunities to work in teams, to lead groups of their peers, and to get first-hand experience in leadership. Participants are taken into an environment with which they are not familiar and where information and resources are limited, typically, given our expertise in the field, in the outdoors. This environment is used to provide numerous and, more importantly, genuine, leadership and team challenges for the participants. These situations require forward-thinking, rapid decision-making, conflict management and excellent communication skills. They require a bias for action and creativity.’
Next post
Next week I will talk about why good foreign language skills and a dual degree are a big plus for MBA’s in the ultra competitive job market.
Lauder students get extra exposure to employers
October 31, 2008 – 1:10 amYesterday was a mad day from the very beginning to the very end. I had to wake up around 5AM to finish up some work for my Accounting class, and it turned out that I had underestimated the amount of work a little so I had to work super fast to get everything done. The day itself was a kaleidoscope of activities: classes, resume editing, a lunch Employer Information Session (EIS) with the Bridgespan Group, then more classes, then another EIS with the McKinsey & Co., then a meeting with my team for the Wharton Business Plan Competition (WBPC) and a trip to a store nearby to buy a Halloween costume for today’s Lauder class (even the professor dressed up today!). While I was shopping, Phillies won the World Series, and the whole city went totally nuts which was a cool thing to watch. Apart from the brilliant baseball victory and wild exhalted screams and sporadic honking in the streets at 2:00AM, this was a more or less typical day at Wharton: by the time I got back home, I had no energy left.
Recruitment is the leitmotif of the second quarter. Employers come to campus to do EIS’s or organize coffee chats or both. Students reach out to individual companies and do career tracks to specific regions of the world, e.g. London or China; clubs work on the logistics of the Days On the Job, etc. It is very easy to spread yourself too thin so it is important to prioritize and focus on the career goals.
As far as job search goes, I personally think, the Lauder students are in a much better position then the rest. We have more to offer to potential employers, we are blessed to be connected to an exceptionally supportive network of alums around the globe and in addition to this, there is a lot of interaction with the second years who are always there to help with just about anything you may have trouble with. Moreover, companies often do a separate information session or a presentation specifically for the Lauder students which is a great opportunity to network as these events tend to be more detailed and informal. For example, a few weeks ago Samsung Global Strategy Group invited Lauder students to learn about the benefits of working for the company, and JP Morgan did a Lauder-specific presentation today. As far as I am concerned, non-Lauder students rarely have such opportunities so having more access to employers is a major benefit of the Lauder program.
In my next post, I will talk about my preparation for the Leadership Venture to Patagonia I intend on going to in March, 2009; I also plan to comment on the speech that China Ambassador to the US gave at Penn last week and to post a couple of photos I took during the reception with the Ambassador.
Here is a great blog by a very well-versed writer, I am particularly fond of her intersting view on the role of China in the financial meltdown.
Q1
October 23, 2008 – 3:30 amQuarter One is in the past: the exams are over, the team projects done, the Walnut Walk, the White Party, the Foam Party are all but a memory, as is the warm summer weather.
The first quarter has been a very intense, challenging and exciting time, and the most exciting part of this was the incredible mix of talent, personalities, backgrounds and nationalities that is the Wharton School. The students are the engine of the Wharton MBA program, and the faculty are the source of fuel for the Big Student Machine: a match made in heaven.
Much has been said about the high quality of expertise and the exceptional level of involvement of the faculty at Wharton. This is totally true! I think another important thing about this school is that the faculty are very accessible. The famous lunches with professors, for example, are a great way to get to know more about these exceptionally gifted and inspiring people.
Here is how it works: professors announce lunch dates, students then sign up online for a spot. The groups are usually up to five people, but can be bigger. Everyone then decides on the choice of a restaurant. They say, there ain’t such thing as free lunch, but the school covers all/most of the expenses in this case. The conversations are always lively and the recipe for this is simple as most people who sign up for lunches are obviously interested in the subject that the professor teaches, or the students would like to know the professor’s view on things that have been left out of the classroom discussions, or it is quite possible they want to discuss the professor’s article in the Wall Street Journal, etc. The learning never stops here, even at lunch there is always an opportunity to learn something new from some of the best professors and brightest students in the world.
Wharton Leadership Lectures have been a great source of food for thought. The school brings in high-caliber politicians, business people, social activists, etc to share their view on leadership. For example, Secretary Chertoff, who gave a speech and a Q&A at Wharton last week, surprised me with his clear vision of what needs to be done now to make the world a safer place in the future. He is an exceptional speaker with a sharp witty mind and a contagious personality.
This non-stop intellectual activity and the endless opportunities to interact with the coolest people ever is what made me happy at the Wharton School in quarter one.
By the way, here is a great view on happiness:
My next week’s post will either be about the leadership ventures at Wharton and/or the beginning of the recruitment process for the first-year MBA’s.
Research project: graduation requirement at the Lauder Institute
October 16, 2008 – 2:55 amThe major innovation of the Lauder present curriculum is the Research Project and Paper. Here is what the description of the course from the official webiste:
“INTS 991 Research Project and Paper
Students work in cross-language teams on research-oriented projects throughout three semesters of their degree program. The projects are designed to enable students to integrate their Wharton (or Law), SAS, and language skills. They are also designed to give the Lauder Institute, through the work of its students, a voice in major economic or policy debates. Projects involve delivery of results of the research to a specific audience, customer, client, or organization. Projects are co-supervised by two faculty members, one from Wharton (or Law) and one from SAS. Upon completion of the team-based project, students write individual papers on topics of their choice, but also based upon their team’s research.”(Note: SAS is the School of Arts and Sciences.)
The Lauder Institute started a pilot project like this last year, and it is going very well. This is the first time this format is a required course for every first-year at the Lauder Institute, and I think it will be an interesting project to be involved in for a number of reasons.
First, the way it works now provides the students a lot of options as to what projects they want to be involved in. In addition to quite a wide array of research projects the school offers, the students are free to suggest their own research topics, and if these topics generate enough interest among the fellow Lauderites, the school will most likely provide the funding and the guidance for the research. The most important part is that the projects have to span several countries, so that students from different language tracks could be involved.
Second, one of the requirements of the course is a research trip to the country or countries in question. Say, the small group of students who participated in the pilot last year travelled to Mexico, Russia and China. This is a great opportunity to practice one’s language skills. Most first-years at Lauder will travel to distant lands at the end of May next year.
Third, as some of the projects will have external guidance from interested sponsors, this can be a unique opportunity to learn from and interact with very experienced businessmen, consultants, managers, etc.
I am quite settled on researching the Sovereign Wealth Funds and everything associated with them in the context of the modern economic reality. Why? Well, this video explains the magnitude of the problems and controversy associated with the SWFs.
It is time to get back to exam prep – quarter finals start on Friday and finish next week. In my next post I will share a few details about professor-student interaction, and the general life perception in Quarter 1 at Wharton.
PS: It is time to buy stock. Hint: GE.
Language, language, language
October 9, 2008 – 2:52 amMy background is not so traditional–if there is such a thing as a “typical” pre-MBA background at Wharton . Nevertheless, even the most nontraditional MBA’s are very rarely challenged with the same type of problems as me–I am married and have a four year old daughter who is trilingual, i.e. she speaks three languages: Chinese, Russian and English. Being married and having children is mostly a time management issue: it is nothing new, there are a plenty of people with families and kids at Wharton, and time is quite manageable, but the three languages are the challenge that is not so easy to tackle.
Although my daughter is not Asian, she was born in Beijing and grew up in China so Mandarin is her native tongue along with Russian. She also speaks English because I spoke English to her from day one, and she later picked up more of it in Canada when we moved from Tianjin, China to Toronto, Canada last year. After we moved though, I discovered that being able to communicate in Chinese was a huge part of my little daughter’s life and personality so I had to change the communication pattern within my family to make her life more natural and the transition–smooth: I stopped using English with my daughter, and switched to Mandarin instead. It was not easy psychologically, but with a bit of an effort I have been successful in establishing this pattern as the norm now, and all communication between me and my child is done in Chinese. My wife continues using Russian at home for communication with both myself and the daughter. Every day, these three languages are spoken in our home.
However, since the course load at Wharton and the additional course work at Lauder take most of my time now, the Chinese language has once again become an issue in that there was no one to support my daughter’s language skills. We decided to look for Chinese daycare options and private Mandarin tutors in Philadelphia and in the Wharton community to address the problem. And the outcome of this undertaking was great–my daughter is in an environment where her languages are developing in a normal and balanced way. Once again, I got the value added from being a part of the Lauder community: one of the professors at the Lauder Institute, Dr. Theresa Jen, has helped me in my search for an appropriate Chinese daycare. At the same time, one of my cohort mates has helped with finding a good Mandarin tutor.
The Wharton-Lauder combination offers solutions to any problems, even those as impossible as helping your children sustain three languages at the same time, and it is one more reason why being here is such a blessing.
In my next post, I will write about the research project that I might be doing as part of the Lauder curriculum: last lecture on Political Economy on Tuesday, October 7, made me think of looking into the role of the Sovereign Wealth Funds in the modern world.
Lauder makes all the difference
October 2, 2008 – 1:03 amNow, due to a crazy course load, I have been unable to post here more often, and improving this situation is one of the things I will work on during my two years here. I truly believe in sharing experiences with the world. After all, the ancient Chinese believed that learning is an everyday occurence that is just as natural as any other life-related process: 三人行，必有我师也 Hence this blog, hence Lauder, hence Wharton.
The so-called Hell Week, i.e. the week of mid-terms was a hectic test of time management skills. On average I slept 5 hours a day — the rest was solely and totally devoted to school work. It does get overwhelming here, and it is easy to see how people can lose focus and motivation because the amount of work is serious as are the requirements.
I remain focused and motivated, though. The Lauder community has been the best source of support for me: from advice on editing my resume to handling the course work to just simple advice on how things work at Wharton. I do not see that much communication happening between the first and second year students in the Huntsman Hall, whereas at the Lauder Lounge where all the Lauder students segregate and mix, this is an every day occurrence.
I do enjoy most of my Wharton courses. It is absolutely great to explore a new set of intellectual tools and see how they are utilized in practice. Wharton is worth every penny and every effort one pays for the education and the experience here.
At the same time, the Chinese language classes have been a source of immense satisfaction for me (I am a language geek, I admit): the instructors are top-notch, the classmates are engaging, and the overall positive environment spurs quick progress.
I also love the Political Economy course that Pr. Mauro Guillén is teaching: it is rare to get the chance to look at the political perspective of economic activities in the world within a highly diverse international team of very bright classmates and a world-known professor in the field. Students have very interesting insights about everything we discuss in class: many of us have lived through and experienced first hand the effects of economic reforms in developing countries, quite a few have a keen interest and a profound expertise in other course-related subjects, so every class is exciting.
This is just one more reason why so many people fall in love with the Lauder Institute.
In my next post I will describe a few personal challenges that I have successfully tackled in Philadelphia not so many people deal with the same type of problems, but this city and the Wharton community makes it possible to find a solution to just about any problem.
Excitement and Fatigue
September 12, 2008 – 2:14 amWharton is an amazing place, where activity never stops. There are so many things one can do here: from the bizarre, yet richly cultural, lion dancing to the classic b-school consulting with a million of things in between the two.
Initially, I wanted to write about the mandatory team-building that takes place during the Learning Team Retreat, but then there is a wonderful illustration of that experience in a discontinued blog by a Lauder student David Retchkiman on Business Week’s blogs. To me the most valuable observation was the transformation that my learning team went through: from a random group of very different people to a team who are aware of each other’s differences and similarities. The major take-away from the Retreat is that ‘culture within a team or organization is created by default or by design’ and that I personally rather design the culture than passively watch it form by itself. I greatly enjoy my cohort L—we joke that ‘L’ stands for Leadership, Luck, Love, Long Life and other great words: we of course, tend to come with positive terms to describe ourselves— and my learning team 7, aka. “Wide Stance” team.
Classes have been hectic—exactly what I had anticipated, but although the amount of work has been truly overwhelming, I am coping. Quite a few people (I dare say most first-year Whartonites) are just as overwhelmed as myself, though, and it does not surprise anyone here. This does not mean that people do not have fun—there are parties one can go to literally every night.
The famous WGA Club Fair took place yesterday. I will decide which clubs to join (I am now pretty much settled on the Consulting Club, Greater China Club, Canada Club) and enroll online on Sunday. The importance of social and professional clubs at Wharton cannot be underestimated because they are a huge part of the overall Wharton experience: the clubs’ activities embrace and influence practically all aspects of social life, recruitment, networking, entertainment, academics, religion, and whatnot. If one wants to get involved in life at Wharton, clubs are a wonderful opportunity to do so. Other ways of involvement are administrative positions at cohort level.
Meanwhile, I have been trying to get on the Global Consulting Practicum course with a five-strong team of first-years who have similar career interests, but very diverse backgrounds. Not everyone who wants to take GCP gets to do it because the placement process is competitive and even includes a team interview. If we present ourselves well enough as a team, we will get to do a real-life consulting project for a real client. It will most certainly be a lot of extra work (GCP is the only course at Wharton worth 1.5 credit units), and a lot of hands-on learning: needless to say, I am excited to get this chance.
The Lauder Institute is now a much livelier place than a week ago because second-year MBA’s are back in town with a million stories and insights about their internships. They are a source of inspiration for me—Lauder students are a truly unique bunch of weathered global trotters who have an enormous liking for cultural diversity. Today, we had Student Advisory Board elections (I ran for a position, but I did not get elected), and most of the election micro speeches noted that ‘Lauder is the best part of the whole MBA experience at Wharton’. And I can’t agree there more. The tight Lauder community is so much more than I expected, and I truly love being in this warm family-like environment. It is absolutely worth the extra work that comes with the MA course load. On the other hand, Lauder is not just the extra effort, it is also a whole lot of extra satisfaction and fun. Very few people know that Lauderites have quite a few of their own Lauder-specific social events, parties, gatherings, contests and so on. For instance, tomorrow we are all going for a ‘Day On The Beach’. I will finish this post here—time to pack my flip-flops and sunscreen!
To Waive or Not To Waive
August 31, 2008 – 10:44 amA question that is not so easily answerable at Wharton is what core courses could be waived if any. The first-year curriculum is called The Core. It is a well-structured intensive one-year program that mainly comprises full-credit Management, Accounting, Finance and Economics courses. As the course load gets very heavy, and the core eats into the limited number of credits one is allowed to take during the two years at Wharton, there is a lot of incentive to waive some of the courses if one has had either academic or professional exposure to the areas covered in these courses. Pre-term is the only time to do this, so people have been busy with waivers.
There are two ways to waive courses: by credentials and by exam. The former can be considered if one has excelled in a similar course elsewhere—and excellence in a reputable school is what it takes for the credentials to be considered valid. Say, an A- as opposed to an A from, say, a school like Chicago will most often be an unbreakable obstacle in the process—the requirements are high.
Waiving a course by exam is available to those who did not attempt waiving that same course by credentials. One is typically given two weeks to prepare for a waiver exam; during the prep time students attend lectures and use all other available resources: from professors’ office hours and Teaching Assistants (TA’s) to tutors.
Roughly 40% of all Wharton MBA’s take all core courses.
MBA events
August 14, 2008 – 11:07 amI am well aware that the audience of this blog consists mainly of aspiring MBA applicants, and since the first round has already started, many people are wondering whether they should visit a world MBA tour event or some other event to get a better understanding of the schools they are targeting.
My view on this is simple: any information one can gather about schools and their respective cultures will be very valuable in the MBA quest, and in determining what schools are right—most people target several schools, after all. To me, this is what one’s ‘fit’ is all about. Many MBA application books out there are focused on the fit, and the importance of showing fit with the school; simply put it is all about showing how one’s core values are aligned with those of the school.
The Lauder Institute’s representatives are hitting the road soon, and having received a lot of help from all the individuals on the admissions team in May when I was having some serious difficulties in obtaining a US student visa, I can say that these incredibly supportive people are the best source of info available outside Wharton’s campus. It is a great chance to reach out to them, so attending the events they will be hosting is a priceless oportunity.
As far as school research goes, I am a firm believer in visiting schools and in attending school-specific events. My experience shows that the undertakings where a score of institutions are present tend to be less valuable as visitors typically get a very limited time with the schools’ representatives. A school visit gives a much broader and precise perspective on a multitude of aspects that ultimately make a significant difference: What kind of people are there? What kind of facilities are there? What kind of environment is it? Is it a comfortable place to be? How responsive is the community to your questions? Eventually, the list of questions gets very long so a visit is the best and most efficient way to get a feeling and an understanding of many important things about the school. In my opinion, there is no better way to do data mining about schools.
Visit!
Unbelievably incredible
August 1, 2008 – 1:37 amJust a week ago, all of the Lauder Institute’s Chinese trackers sang karaoke in Beijing (We have a couple of singers with world potential, I am sure. I love hearing their rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “Unforgettable“: I heard it a couple of times now, and I am certainly their devoted fan!) and here we are – back in Philadelphia.
Incredible is the word that best describes my last several days. In just a span of a week I crossed borders of three countries, flew half way around the globe, drove 900 km from Canada to the US, but most importantly, I met so many incredible people at Wharton! I am still learning to accept this as my new reality, and the good thing is that I extremely enjoy the new environment.
Pre-term started yesterday. The day was filled with all sorts of orientations, info sessions and the like. I was not prepared to take in so much new information so by the end of the day, the data overload took its toll – by about 8.00PM there was no mental power left for anything more than brushing teeth as my brain desperatedly tried to digest and categorize everything.
The technical highlights of the first two days of pre-term have been the Cohort Orientation, the Course Auction and the Convocation.
Cohort Orientation
My cohort mates are impressive: the motley palette of short self-introductions we did today was a model show case of the array of talents found at Wharton. What a wonderful place to be in!
Course Auction
At Wharton, one has to bid for most elective courses and one core course using the system that is called The Auction–a powerful web-based automated platform that gives the bidders tools to make informed decisions when bidding for courses. The official brochure explaining the rules of the Auction states that the process has been designed as a way to provide ‘an equitable and efficient allocation of seats in elective courses when demand exceeds supply.’
Just like in real auctions, the idea is that one has to compete with other students to get onto a course he or she wants to take. The only difference with conventional auctions is that everyone is given an equal amount of points to start with: 2000 non-transferrable points for pre-term auction, and then 5000 points for the “real” auction in the beginning of the first quarter. All I can say is that it is an impressive a system that is worth exploring in depth if you are at Wharton. The results of the first bidding round are already out, and all of the bids I placed have been successful, except one - The Phillie’s Game, which means I will have to bid heavily for it in the second round.
Convocation
The MBA program for the class of 2010 has officially started today. I quite liked the convocation ceremony speeches, and here are some of the quotes I especially enjoyed:
Leadership is making the correct sacrifices at the proper time.
Staying out of trouble is difficult; getting out of trouble is impossible.
Problems never age well.
Farewell Beijing
July 23, 2008 – 12:19 pmFriday is when I leave the Underheaven. Our Summer Immersion here has just come to an end, and I am already contemplating the whirlwind of activities that awaits me in Philadelphia, and honestly, it worries me a bit. The Admissions have long sent the schedule for August which could be summarized as ‘very very buzy four weeks’. Although I am confident I will survive, there is no doubt that good time management will be key.
Anyways, these amazing several days since my last post were packed with great activities!
Last Friday, we finished the series of ten corporate visits with an afternoon voyage to Tencent’s HQ in Zhongguancun, Beijing. It was quite an eye opener: Chinese netizens are doing things I did not even think exhisted. One can even have a virtual pet nowadays: this requires, among other Tamagochi-like tasks, an investment in virtual pet supplies, food, training and your pet’s social activities. Although I am not going to go that far in using Tencent’s services (I prefer real pets that can, for example, chew on my favorite shoes), I have already started a QQ account, and I am also looking for a WordPress plugin that will allow me to link my QQ with this blog.
A Coffee Chat without coffee
On Saturday three current stuents hosted a coffee chat for aspiring Wharton applicants. Although my role was very technical (reserving the venue) and I only met about a fifth of all the people there, I can say now that some of those people left an impression on me. Wharton attracts truly outstanding applicants, and this diversity of accomplished people is among the best things about the school.
One thing that upset me though was that some of the guests did not want to buy Starbucks concoctions which caused a bit of a turmoil. The coffee shop repeatedly asked people to spend money which made some of the guests leave. The crowd then had a chance to observe our conflict resolution skills in action, peace was restored, and we soon were able to continue the predominantly caffeine-free coffee chat.
An interesting detail: 11 people officially registered to attend the chat, but the actual attenance was over 50.
Great Wall Hike
Finally, on Sunday three of us went hiking on the Great Wall. After a bit of research, I had booked the trip through Backpackers’ Hostel, and I now wholeheartedly recommend them. The hike itself was quite an exercise, especially considering all the steep hills and the countless steps! The heat was another difficulty, but the mesmerizing views and the picknick on one of the watch towers were absolutely worth the sweat! Grand total for the day: two bus trips with three friends, thirty watch towers, 8.5 km of rough terrain, one picknick, 68 great photos, RMB260.
On GMAT
July 17, 2008 – 9:47 amPeople have been asking me about the GMAT test, and in as much as I do not really think it is an exciting topic to talk about, here is my view on this test:
1. It is fun.
2. It is objective and fair: even post-test, even post-MBA.
3. It can be a serious challenge, but nothing to be afraid of if you like using your head to solve problems. Not just math problems, that is.
To prepare for the GMAT, I used all the official guides available in 2007, including the older versions. In addition, my library now boasts the Princeton Review’s prep book and one of the Kaplan’s books: Kaplan GMAT 800, which I didn’t get to use much at all. I also utilised Princeton Review’s CD-ROM that comes with the book, Kaplan’s CD-ROM as well as both versions of the official test prep software available free of charge on GMAC’s website. I prepared by myself at home. Sometimes, my wife, whose math skills are simply unbelievable, helped me.
As far as online resources go, the best online resource for GMAT test preparation is arguably the very imaginatively named GMAT Club. The community is great, people are super supportive of each other, but my view is very subjective, as I have not used any other online resource so I do not know any better. Take it or leave it.
I took the test only once on January 29, 2007 in Beijing, China.
On a side note, the other day, I was riding in a taxi past the hotel building where the Beijing test center is located, and suddenly all the memories of the test day came back in one refreshing wave. I suddenly remembered how I arrived in Beijing from Tianjin one day in advance, checked in the Home Inn hotel just off the Dongzhi Men subway station and then timed my way to the Xizhi Men, and then to the test center to make sure I would not be late for my appointment the next day. I recalled the nervousness I felt that night, too.
A little detail from the test day: as I was sitting among the rest of the candidates in the waiting lounge, the last candidate came in and — oh! horror! — the only locker available for him would not lock. The test center staff girls took several botched attempts at fixing the lock, and the candidate became very upset about the whole thing. A scandal was about to erupt, I decided it was time to use my limited technical knowledge of locks (I have installed and fixed a few locks in the past, but that’s all): it took me a minute to tighten a couple of screws that hold the different layers of the mechanism sandwiched between the metal lock cover and the door itself and — voiala! — the security of the locker space was restored. I remember one of the girls thanked me with a happy ‘You are so hands on!’ Hmm…
I remembered it felt great to have scored well above what I had been expecting. I also remembered the excitement on the other end of the line when I called my wife right after the test, and the super delicious dinner we had that night in Tianjin’s French restaurant called C’est la Vie.
It is a bit ironic that I am now taking classes at Beijing Foreign Studies University, which is a five-minute taxi ride from the GMAT test center. Who would have thought that my life would be so different! Beijing is a city of revolutions, so I guess, Beijing’s and China’s enormous energy might have something to do with the way people transform their careers here
I scored 730 which placed me in the 97th percentile. According to the information included in the Lauder orientation package, the average GMAT score of the Lauder’s class of 2010 has been the highest ever in the history of the Lauder Institute. If I am not mistaken, it is actually higher than the average for the Wharton-only MBA admits this year. So here is one more blow to the myth that it is easier to get accepted to the Wharton School if you also apply to the Lauder Institute.
Cultural revolution
Wharton-only MBA’s are sometimes called WHOMBA’s (pronounced whah-m-bah)
A week in Beijing: July 7-13
July 14, 2008 – 2:22 pmI have been in China for the past 6 weeks doing the summer immersion program – a signature feature of the course at the Lauder Institute. Overall, it has been an exciting and fulfilling experience, and in this blog I will try to cover bits and pieces of the many activities that my classmates and I have been doing in the Underheaven.
Last week was absolutely great: the highlights of our activities include an informative corporate visit to Ogilvy, and a blast of an Alumni Reception that we organized for all the whartonites and lauderites who roam around in the streets of Beijing. I was also among five die-hards who could not miss the opportunity to visit Baidu.com’s headquarters in Zhongguancun, and get to talk to the journalists at Caijing Magazine.
Let me start with the visit to Ogiylvy’sBeijing headquarters. We had the honor of listening to and communicating with the Guru of cyberspace, Kaiser Kuo. He is certainly a bright personality and his professionalism is unquestionable. Kaiser surprises with his almost encyclopedic knowledge of the Internet-related issues in China. Having spent seven years in China, I can say that this level of professionalism and the depth of knowledge of the subject matter is very rare here. Anyone who is interested in gaining more insight into the entertainment super highway that is the Internet in China (according to Kaiser) should definitely read his professional blog.
The Wharton-Lauder Alumni Reception, Beijing Chapter was a great opportunity to meet some very exciting alumni at an upscale Beijing restaurant called Jasmine (I will post some pictures of their very cool wine cellar when I can upload photos). The food was great, but most importantly the reception turned out to be a showcase of the diversity that the Wharton School and the Lauder Institute stand for. I enjoyed mixing with the alumni as I immensely enjoy talking with wise and experienced people.
On the weekend, I visited Tianjin — the city that had been my base and home for seven years. One of the highlights of my trip was a conversation with a taxi driver, Mr. Li, who turned out to be a retired wushu master! After he had made the revelation about his previous career and his lifetime devotion to the Baji Quan style, our conversation was only and solely about martial arts in China. At 60 km/h Mr. Li was showing me all sorts of martial wushu moves accompanied by the super loud martial screams while navigating his way in the chaotic (and fast-moving!!) traffic on the high-speed section of Tianjin’s Middle Ring Road. Suddenly, the Toyota Corolla became a wushu training ground for me: my shifu explained the general screaming techniques — apparently an important element of the bodyguard style – and insisted that I try. No problem, Master Li! It took me ten minutes or so to learn the basics of making mad qi-invigorating screams: the learning was easy as I was all white knuckles anyways.
Another highlight of my Tianjin escapade was a visit to the surreal China House on Chifeng Dao. Although more interesting on the outside then on the inside, it is a great place to visit, and l recommend exploring the one-of-a-kind private museum. Make sure to venture out to the rooftop pavilion to get a nice view of the surrounding architecture. Entry to the China House costs RMB20/person.
Time flies! We have only two weeks left in China, which means that I will need to speed up my pre-term prep. Pre-term starts on July 30, and by the looks of it, it will be an extremely busy August for me.
Some thoughts on the modern Chinese subculture and press
July 9, 2008 – 2:59 pmI have been reading a book called ‘Give Me a Cigarette’ （给我一支烟）by a Chinese author whose alias is 美女变大树, and it made me think of the following:
1. It seems that the new generation is somewhat lost in the maze made of the traditional values, the modern ultra materialistic view of the world, and the everchanging social environment. Hence the very questionable and fragile value system of the main characters in the book — I must mention that Chinese people around me keep telling me that the book is not at all representative of what the modern youth is about, but the fact that the book itself is quite popular tells me that quite a few people somehow connect with the characters described.
2. Those who criticise China for the lack of freedom of speech, should read such modern Chinese books more often (or talk to taxi drivers in Beijing — they are in no way limited at all). I think, although I myself find the story just plain disgusting and meaningless, I see it as a fact that China is actually quite open about some of the most acute social problems that plague certain parts of the modern urban society in China, i.e. drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, extreme nihillism and lack of direction in life.
Earlier today, a couple of Chinese journalists shared with me an interesting view on the issue of censorship in China: apparently, in the times of crysis, e.g. the SARS in 2003 and the most recent Sichuan earthquake, the local press becomes absolutely free because ’the relevant authorities’ need time to react and decide on what type of information should be limited. They simply rely on the initial reports to analyze the situation, and make the decisions. Therefore, free press has already become a reality in China, and I am sure we will see much more of it.
My ultra-short bio
July 9, 2008 – 1:52 pmJust to clarify my background, and to tell the world a few nice words about myself, here is an exerpt about myself from the Lauder student bio book. The 2010 bio book has not been published online, yet, but to get an idea about the amazingly diverse and exciting Lauder community the 2008 and 2009 bio books might be a nice starting point.
Get set. Go!
July 8, 2008 – 2:28 pmThis feels good! I have finally set to blog about the exciting world that is the Wharton-Lauder MBA/MA joint degree program. This blog is intended as my first and very modest contribution to the Wharton School and to the Lauder Institute, though I hope that this is just the beginning, and I will be able to make more significant contributions in the future.
It is my hope to make this a useful resource for I plan to update the blog regularly. I would be happy to answer any questions about the Wharton School, the Lauder Institute, myself, my posts or photos, or just about anything in the world.
Although this had been my plan (and deep down — my dream) since very long ago, I intentionally decided to wait till today, July 8, 2008 to give this event a bit of a symbolic significance. First, exactly one month from today, Beijing for the first time in its history will open the Olympic Games — undoubtedly a very significant event in the modern Chinese history. Second, I cannot help but surrender to the Chinese obsession with the number “8″, hence the choice of the date for the start of this blog.
Cultural Revolution
For those who are not very familiar with the intricacies of the Chinese reality, in the land of the dragon, “8″ stands for ‘wealth’ and everything it represents. For instance, phone numbers that contain lots of eights cost significantly more than those without such. By the way, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games falls on 2008.08.08. I wonder why…