 Students
can learn about the tenets of global business in class, but
there’s no substitute for experience. That’s why the Smith
School gives all of its Executive MBA and custom MBA
students in Asia, Europe and the United States the
opportunity for real-life global experiences through the
global electives courses offered at Smith learning locations
around the world. Each May and November executives from both
the United States and China are given the option to take
their elective courses in College Park, Beijing or Shanghai.
“You can read about a flat world, but meeting people
half-way across the globe, taking a course with them, and
exchanging views on common problems helps you really get
it,” says Rob Sheehan, Smith academic director of Executive
MBA and executive degree programs.
Smith builds a global component into all of its Executive
MBA programs. The most recent global elective was offered in
May 2007, when participants in Smith’s Executive MBA program
in College Park and the Smith-GSBA Global Executive MBA
program in Zürich exchanged knowledge and perspective in an
advanced strategy course with peers drawn from Smith’s
Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin Executive MBA and custom MBA
programs. As part of the course students worked on a “living
case study” that explored a real-time problem facing Shui On
Development Limited, a major Chinese real-estate development
company.
 “The
course provided me with insight into the perspectives that
executives from other parts of the world use to evaluate and
analyze business problems and opportunities,” says Bambo
Bamgbose, vice president and CFO of e-Management, Inc., who
took part in the May 2007 global elective. “It also provided
me with an opportunity to see how business is conducted in a
country with a different political and economic system.”
For Cahba Kingwood, regional executive with Sun
Microsystems, Inc., who took part in a global elective last
year, the time spent with his classmates was as important
for his education as the academic material being taught.
“Because of the interaction I had with the Beijing students
who were in my class, I got a good understanding of how
Chinese people see business, how they view the U.S. market
and what the areas for growth are,” says Kingwood. “We were
able to have business conversations; we interacted in team
projects in class and had social times such as dinners and
sight-seeing trips. I also had the chance to reconnect with
some of the students who came to College Park from Shanghai
in May 2006.”
If you’re interested in a global elective, Bamgbose and
Kingwood have some practical advice. “Students taking a
global elective in a location with a time difference of more
than eight hours should give themselves sufficient time to
adjust in order to be ready to go when the class begins,”
says Bambgose. And plan some extra travel time after your
class, adds Kingwood: “You’ll make a lot of new friends
during the course who can give you advice on where to go and
what to see in the host country. They are brilliant folks,
and you can learn a lot from your colleagues in the other
cohorts.” |
