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Happy Birthday to Me ahh, another year goes by - happy birthday may you fully enjoy the last bit of your 20's..! |
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The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel I remember how dissappointed I was the first time I took this tunnel - it was so expensive (as transport) and so very tacky (as a tourist attraction). I think the ferry is a much more interesting way to cross the river. I proceeded to recommend my tourist friends to not take it, but have since found that some of my friends who have visited Shanghai thought it was great fun. Go figure. |
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Z Series Train in China My family just came back to Shanghai from Beijing yesterday on a Z train. It's comfortable enough for an overnight train, but I must say that the bathrooms become rather smelly during the course of the evening. It seems that some people (probably men) confuse the drain hole on the floor with a urinal. |
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Meetup: MBA or Not, that is a Question (Well, my test post seemed to work so I'll try again - for some reason I thought when I posted on 2/11 that it said that it was being held for review? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?) (This turned out to be longer than I had intended, but hopefully it's helpful for your friends who are also thinking about bschool). I've been lurking for a while, but wanted to comment on this entry after I saw canadian badass' comments. I wanted to share a perspective from someone who was trained as an engineer and has more of a "technical" background on the value of an MBA. I am currently in my second year at a top ranking US program and will graduate in June. These two years have been tremendously rewarding on both a professional and personal level. As I implied above, I was trained as an electrical engineer and have received my bachelor's and master's as such. Professionally, my work experience has been with developing and implementing enterprise software applications. All this to say, I had never taken an economics or business course before in my life. I found the formal introduction of topics like accounting, finance, economics / strategy, and marketing to be fascinating. True, I could have picked up these topics from books, but there is something bout being in a formal learning environment with homework, quizzes, papers and tests that encourages you to read and learn. I have many classmates who are like canadian badass and are fortunate enough to already have had prior business experience. However for those like me who come from non-business backgrounds it's great to be able to learn the basic concepts. I just don't see myself having the discipline to pick up reading on the finer points of Modigliani & Miller in my spare time (probably to my loss). Also, the idea of going to school part time is unappealing to me - I wanted to come and learn. Going full time for me was the best way to be focused and give myself the best situation for learning. If all I wanted was the degree for my career because I already knew most of the material then maybe that makes sense, but even in that case it seems that recruiters view full time as a little bit more competitive than part time. I think jqian and trivance have good points too. First regarding jqian's point - I agree that you certainly don't need an MBA to be successful (although MBA's can be vsionaries too!) - there are lots of examples of CEO's and other successful leaders who do not have MBA's. Certainly, if you just want to make a lot of money, there are other ways to do it. You can make a lot of money from selling fertilizer, pig feed, and buttons. A traditional US-model MBA is 2 years of time coupled with significant financial expenses - anyone considering an MBA should ask if it's really worth it! If you are considering going for an MBA, you should make sure to check out the career center's publications on what their grads on average make before and after the program. If you are already making on the top end of what their grads are making, financial incentive is probably low for you to attend. Personally, I think I will be able to payback my loans within 2-3 years. From a career perspective, I believe being here at an MBA progrm with a strong brand gave me more opportunities. I think an MBA (as other programs of higher education) offer a way for people to change careers. If I had not gone back to school, I don't think i would have been able to get this job at the strategy consulting firm I will be going to in Shanghai in the fall. I have also seen classmates go from finance backgrounds to marketing and vice versa. If you are thinking about an MBA, you should check out the list of recruiters that go to your target school. Schools with a strong brand for finance will attract more firms recruiting for finance jobs while schools with a strong brand for marketing will attract all the big marketing firms and recruiters looking for marketers. Schools with strong general management programs, well, other than attracting companies with general management rotational programs seem to also attract consulting firms! One school of thought on this is that if you want a marketing job you should go to a marketing school. A different school of thought on this is that everyone you will be competing with will go to the marketing schools so if you want a marketing job maybe it's better to go to a finance school. And vice versa. Certainly it's yet to be seen whether I will have the opportunity or ability to apply anything that I've learned from the classroom in the real world, but at least if I can't yet "walk the walk" I feel that I can at least "talk the talk". It's good to know what credits and debits are, to understand the differences and uses for balance sheet vs income statement vs cash flow, and what people mean when they refer to STP and the 4P's in marketing. Just as important to me as the learning and professional opportunities has been the personal experiences I've had. In particular, the friends I have met here have been really fun and interesting people who I hope to stay in touch with for a long time. They come from all over the world, and I hope that I will be able to call on them if I have the opportunity to travel to their homeland in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Mid East or Far East! I guess this takes us to trivance's point about networking. A lot of people say that the only real thing you get at the end of the day from an MBA program is the degree and the alumni network - and the degree is only really helpful for your first job! I've had the opportunity to interact with the alumni network and on average my experience has been positive - most people I contact via email or phone have been responsive and helpful. At the same time, I also know that they are very busy and what they can do for you may be pretty limited. I think in the end the verdict is still out on how helpful the alumni network will be. On another personal note, although I know that "its not what you know but who you know that counts", I still don't like the idea of 1) getting to know other people for the sake of establishing a valuable contact, and 2) the feeling that i owe other people for my job or whatever. Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, we'll see. Finally, I want to say that eventually I hope to be running my own business or at least a part of someone else's. It seems that JianShuo has a pretty good head start on me! :) I'm patient though, and I firmly believe that when the right idea or opportunity comes I will be a better general manager for my MBA experience than without it. I'm sure I will still make mistakes, but I'm also sure that it will be fewer in number than it otherwise would have been. Would I have done just as well or even better by taking a deep breath and diving in (like canadian badass suggested via the school of hard knocks)? I don't think I'll ever know the answer to that, but regardless of when or if I ever "arrive", the long business trip that began with an application for my MBA has been a great experience so far. |
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Meetup: MBA or Not, that is a Question *test* Sorry - I posted a comment a few days ago but it's never shown up so I am checking to see if it it was withheld for some reason or I did something wrong. |