A Boot Camp Pitch For Getting An MBA in China

CEIBS boot campers take photos of Shanghai from the McKinsey office  - Ethan Baron photo

CEIBS boot campers take video and photos of Shanghai from the McKinsey office           – Ethan Baron photo

Career Services Director Li says that for overseas students, understanding the ways of China is also key to finding a job there. “They need to keep an open mind, with eagerness to learn new things and understand this culture . . . be open to everything, the food, the culture, the people, and to try their best to learn and to understand. Sometimes I do find there are different ways of communication and people may misunderstand each other.” While local hiring by multinationals has been flat, companies’ hiring under leadership development programs in China is increasing. “They recruit MBA students or graduates from all the top business schools. They need talents who can understand this market,” Li says.

China’s rapid growth carries perils for MBAs set on careers there. In his lecture to boot campers, Gosset highlights future risks that need to be carefully managed. “The price China is paying for a rapid economic rise is huge in terms of natural degradation,” Gosset says. A truly independent judicial system is also required for China to fight corruption that endangers its advance, Gosset says. More investment in education and a social safety net are also required, he adds.

‘THE SPIRIT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS BURNING. PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE POOR AGAIN’

The huge increase in wealth generated by China’s explosive progress also presents a risk that the country will go the way of Japan, which has suffered from a 40-year recession in which the economy has failed to grow even 1% over the past 20 years, Ramasamy tells boot camp participants. Japan’s massive economic growth and expanding wealth of the 1980s produced a subsequent generation of Japanese who were more interested in holidays and air conditioning than working hard and coming up with new products, Ramasamy suggests. In China, the same energetic entrepreneurship is alive in China now as it was in Japan in the ‘80s, he says.

“This spirit of entrepreneurship is burning. People don’t want to become poor again. The question is, will China be like Japan where the next-generation Chinese are going to be like this new generation of Japanese? With the new generation of Chinese, when you have kind of grown up in an environment where . . . life is easy, life is good, you get what you want, and you don’t have to work very hard. Will this new generation of Chinese have this current level of entrepreneurship? This is going to be one of those challenges. Can China continue to grow? Will the spirit of entrepreneurship continue to burn in the next generation of Chinese, or will we follow this Japanese model and just take it easy?”

Ramasamy believes that because labor is no longer as cheap in China as it once was – hourly manufacturing wages have risen 12% a year since 2001, according to The Economist – productivity gains are China’s only hope for growth. “Productivity in China is still relatively low,” Ramasamy says.

FREEDOM TO SPEAK, ON CAMPUS

CEIBS boot camp participant Geena Maharaj introduces herself        - Ethan Baron photo

CEIBS boot camp participant Geena Maharaj introduces herself – Ethan Baron photo

At CEIBS, a non-profit joint venture between the Chinese government commerce department and the European Commission, professors and students have the liberty to speak their opinions in the classroom, says the marketing department’s Chason. “It’s quite separate from the other public universities,” Chason says. “Dialog is completely free within this campus. A lot of the Chinese professors tend to be sometimes more critical than the foreign professors.” As in the U.S. and many other countries, advocating overthrow of the government could bring trouble, but, adds MBA Director Chen, “you can criticize government policy without a question.”

Toward the end of the boot camp, Geena Maharaj, a 24-year-old product marketing specialist from Minnesota who has a BA in marketing, communications, and journalism from the University of St. Thomas and is planning an MBA, says she was hesitant to come to CEIBS because she’s never been abroad for a long period. “I applied on a whim, and I looked more into it and I saw that this was a very serious program, a serious school,” Maharaj says. “Now I’m thinking of spreading my wings and going to do (an MBA) internationally. This program has shown me that’s an option.”

DON’T MISS: GETTING AN MBA IN CHINA: AN AMERICAN IN SHANGHAI or POETS&QUANTS’ 2014 BEST INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL RANKING

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