I haven't written much about the classes I'm taking here at HKUST (yes, amidst all the traveling and goofing around I am indeed taking classes here). When I first signed up for this academic term at HKUST I was a little disappointed, especially because the selection was a little lacking. Of course, I was used to the class selection at the GSB, where you need three different spreadsheets just to track the various courses, and where bidding for classes takes a good chunk of a supercomputer's processing time.
Despite the lack of selection, I ended up with four classes that have worked better than I imagined. Although two of them (International Management and Managerial Decision Making) are "soft classes" that I don't particularly care for, the other two have quickly found a place on my "Top Classes I've Taken During My MBA" list. That's saying something, especially when you consider the "rock-star," future Nobel prize winning professors I've had the good fortune to study with.
The two HKUST classes that I mention are "Investment and Finance in China" and "Politics and Socioeconomic History in China" - boring in name only. The first is taught by an American professor who has a ridiculous amount of experience doing business in China - not only is the course material informative, but his war stories are the best.
The other class has been a complete eye-opener. With a title like "Politics and Socioeconomic History of China" I would have expected a laundry list of dates and facts thrown at me. Instead, not only has this class revealed my ignorance of all things Chinese, but it has given me a whole new viewpoint by which to examine the cultural backdrop to China's emergence on the world stage.
I have to admit that I was arrogant enough to think that because of my travels that I had more knowledge than the average joe regarding China. While that may be true, I'm coming to understand that I'm not that much better off. Were Winston Churchill alive today, he would no doubt use the same definition for China that he used for Russia in his time: "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." However, my classes, and the subsequent cultural immersion, has me seeing the big picture for the first time.
If only everyone had the opportunity to step into the unfamiliar and learn from the experience. Study abroad rocks!
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That's one of my biggest beef with the MBA: lack of international exposure when most of US is stale. Who wouldn't be interested in your class if it were offered at the GSB!?
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ReplyDeleteI agree about the international exposure could be more comment, but isn't "most of US is stale" a little harsh?:)
I actually came to b-school expecting to take tons of international-ish classes and even looked at the International Relations program, but something went wrong after that.
I felt the same way after being exposed to the history of the EU, the adoption of the euro and all the drama that goes on here in Europe. It is damn interesting and I didn't know half of it until I came here. Definitely something lacking in the GSB portfolio.
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