Low Pay, Fast Gains From Fudan-MIT MBA

Asian Business School MBA Programs, by the Numbers

School	Graduates staying in China (inc. Hong Kong)	Job offers by 3 months after graduation	Median starting salary	Alumni salary after 3 years
Fudan	94%	96%	$39,000	$91,000
CEIBS	87%	96%	$62,500	$141,000
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	60% (36% HK)	82%	$86,000	$133,000
National University of Singapore	N/A	99%	$63,000	$110,000
Nanyang University, Singapore	80% (Asia inc. China)	84%	N/A	$111,000

Sources: School data, the Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek

As part of Sloan’s Action Labs, eight Sloan students per year work with Fudan MBA students on a consulting project for a Chinese company. Sloan students visit Fudan; Fudan students visit Sloan. Through the program, the MIT students get experience in a global environment, build networks with Fudan students and Chinese businesspeople, and live the Sloan motto “Mens et Manus” – Mind and Hands, Capodilupo says.

“You can’t just learn everything in the classroom,” he says. “You have to roll up your sleeves. Not only do they have that with a company but they are also doing that with students from a different culture and background. It’s a bond that I think you will have for the rest of their lives and careers.”

While Fudan offers semester- and week-long overseas exchanges for its candidates, most international students stay at Fudan and take electives instead because they want to maximize their immersion in China, says Evan Chang, who has a BS in economics from the University of Michigan and just received his Fudan-MIT international MBA. Chang came to Fudan because his parents live in Shanghai, and the strong Chinese economy was attractive. He spoke basic Chinese before coming and improved his language skills considerably during the MBA program. Particularly through internships, foreign students are “fully immersed in the Chinese environment,” says Chang, who did internships in Shanghai with Bosch and a Chinese investment management firm during his MBA.

EYEING A BOUNTY IN M&A

He’s now looking for jobs in China and the U.S., and is seeking experience in mergers and acquisitions. “The Chinese economy is really developing,” says Chang, 26. “As China grows there’s going to be a lot of consolidation.”

For Casey Drillette, who headed to China shortly after graduating from Colorado College in 2011 with a BS in political economy, getting thrown into groups with Chinese peers and studying and working with local firms was exactly what she was looking for. “I wanted the experience of working in a classroom with Chinese classmates,” says Drillette, 26. “I wanted to have more experience about how business works in China.”

Drillette, also just graduated with a Fudan MBA, had minored in Asian studies during college, then taught English in China for two years afterward. “I studied Chinese in college but apparently I did a poor job of it because when I got here I couldn’t understand anything,” she says. She took a Chinese language course at a Chinese university in 2013, and, after two years in the Fudan MBA program, she’s nearly fluent.

Drillette is doing business development and account management for a corporate training company in Shanghai, and working as a consultant for an education startup. She plans to stay in China, where she says the thriving entrepreneurship environment and hunger for foreign employees creates a dynamic job market for newly minted MBAs. “I kind of think of China as the new Wild Wild West,” Drillette says. “It’s so incredibly different from the U.S., and things happen really fast. Sometimes it turns out well and sometimes not. You can be really frustrated as well but it’s really exciting here.

‘IT GETS CROWDED, SWEATY, AND TOUCHY’

“There are things that still just drive me insane – when you have 23 million people in one city, it gets crowded, and sweaty, and touchy. But overall, Chinese people are very friendly. They want to get to know you, and they want to share with you their customs and their homes.”

When selecting foreign students, the Fudan SOM offers admission only to candidates who show a strong interest both in China, and in a China-based education, Sun says. Foreign students, once graduated, are well positioned for jobs in China for local and global companies, for work in Chinese companies operating overseas, and for jobs in other countries in firms doing business with China, Sun says. “If you’ve got more knowhow of China’s business, how to do business in China, and at the same time you have the Fudan alumni network, you will have great opportunities,” Sun says.

The Fudan SOM’s position in a large government university means MBAs can access an alumni network that spans disciplines and extends into the hundreds of thousands, on top of 30,000 SOM alumni. And, says Sun, Fudan international MBA grads become affiliated alumni with MIT, and can access MIT and Sloan alumni resources. The MIT alumni organization in Shanghai, for example, regularly sends Fudan-MIT MBA alumni a calendar of events that provide networking opportunities, Sun says.