Note: this was written 21 May 2007 at 9:30 PM Beijing Time.
I arrived in Xi’an this afternoon for a few days of recovery following four days of classes in Beijing. In addition to recovering I can have a chance to update everyone reading the blog on the China trip.
Thursday through Sunday were spent in class. This is one of two electives that are part of my Executive MBA program at the University of Maryland. The class was Service Marketing, which was a very interesting topic. A lot of the marketing activity built around a service offering involves making the intangible elements tangible, whether it’s the environment, collateral, people who will deliver the service or processes that will support service delivery.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about the class was that it was divided in such a way to favor case discussions and presentations by teams. The professor had assigned some pre-course reading and a case write-up to familiarize the students to process of analyzing a service case and developing sets of recommendations relevant to service marketing. This equipped us to review additional cases and make team presentations of analysis and recommendations. This was much more interactive and educational than a straight lecture.
I really enjoyed getting to know my classmates, and I enjoyed the team that I was on. The class was actually very diverse with a number of countries represented, which was a bonus that I hadn’t originally expected. The students were working in a number of very impressive functions both for local Chinese firms and multinational firms. There were locals and ex-pats as well as big-company executives and entrepreneurs. I hope to keep in touch with my classmates, and I was actually sad to say good-bye when the class came to an end.
Today I am in Xi’an and really taking more of a recovery than heading out for any sort of night on the town. Tomorrow I am off to see the terra-cotta army, and I am sure that I will have many pictures to post after that particular trip.
Posted in Today
Tagged beijing, china, MBA
As I write this I am in China. I’ve come to attend an elective course selection with the Beijing cohort of the University of Maryland Executive MBA program. I’ve come a few days early to see the sites in Beijing and catch up with my friend Laura and her boyfriend Bruce.
After classes end this weekend I’m off to Xi’ain to see the terra-cotta army and be a shameless tourist. After that I’ll have three days in Shanghai to walk along the Bund, shop on Nanjing Road and generally just exerience a few days of really big city living.
The flight from Washington was the new United Airlines direct flight to Beijing. I treated a 13.5 hour flight pretty much like a camping trip. I also had a lot of work to get done as prep for the MBA classes in Beijing: a huge amount of reading that needs to get done and a case write-up on Starbucks. I’m not done, but I made good progress on the flight. I was really amazed that or trajectory took us very close to the North Pole and even more amazed at the view out the window. Thankfully I managed to sleep for several hours, too. For a 13.5 hour flight it all went pretty fast.
I met Laura and Bruce at the Beijing airport and came back to their place to get cleaned up. After some catching up we went for a walk through the city. It was a hot, clear afternoon. Despite a clear sky there was still some dust in the air, and I know the climate will take just a little getting used to. We went to an open air market full of really fresh fruits, vegetables and spices. The food was very fresh and fragrant, and I can still almost smell the spices from the spice vendors. We had dinner at a restaurant near the market.
At about 8 PM I basically collapsed from fatigue. Now it’s 3:30 in the morning and I’m awake. No surprise– I’ll be caught up with the local schedule after a few more hours of sleep this AM.
I hope to find some time every day (or at leas every few days!) to jot down some thoughts on the day preceeding. I am also going to be posting photos as I take them, and you can see my shots from my flight over and first day in Beijing here: August’s China Trip, Day 1.
Posted in Today
Tagged beijing, china, MBA
To prepare for my soon-to-begin MBA program I took a skills assessment of my knowledge in managerial and financial accounting as well as business statistics and finance. Having not taken an accounting class and my only academic exposure to statistics being through a political science class I took a decade ago, I had to reach deep into my memory to take this test. Going in I expected to break out the party hats if I broke 50 percent. I’m happy to say I actually got 68 percent of the questions correct. No doubt part of that had to do with a skill for weeding out incorrect answers and making good guesses on multiple-choice exams.
Never mind having a better-than-expected score, I’ve purchased some refresher modules to raise my skill level so as to not embarrass myself when classes start.
