Frog to Dragon: HEC MBA & Tsinghua MBA Blog

Posted by Pam at 1 November , 2011

My apologies on the previous post were clealy short lived and I left my blog unattended for a while (again).
Blame it on holidays…

Commencement ceremony of the HEC MBA

As planned, I graduated from the Tsinghua MBA in late June and from the HEC MBA in October. The latter is due to the fact that Dual-Degree candidates are awarded through the September jury at HEC, once all credits are verified. Just a formality really.

I still managed to attend to both my graduation ceremonies: at HEC on June 17th and at Tsinghua on June 28th. Square hats, photos (many of them) and commencement speech, at HEC with François-Henri Pinault CEO of PPR, and at Tsinghua with Annie Wu who founded the first Joint-Venture in China.
Of course, what we were all most interested in was to party together as a last act before everyone moves on.

I’m still fascinated by China and have decided to stay for a bit to improve on my Mandarin. I’ve registered to the HSK Level 5 in December, yay! (Not bad for someone who could barely talk to taxi drivers 15 months ago.)
Wish me luck :)

Tags: HEC events
Posted in: 2. At HEC MBA , 3. At Tsinghua MBA | No Comments »

Posted by Pam at 7 June , 2011

First I would like to apologize for leaving my blog for such long period (over 3 months!) without any updates. Of course I could say I was busy and then recovering but it doesn’t justify much…
m( -_- )m

During my second semester at Tsinghua, on top of classes, I have been busying myself with the MIT China Lab program and my Tsinghua graduation thesis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Academics, Travels
Posted in: 3. At Tsinghua MBA | No Comments »

Posted by Pam at 22 February , 2011

Chinese new year is the most important public celebration in the Chinese calendar. It is also a holiday opportunity which allows everyone to return to their families in the respective regions.
This long vacation also allowed me to work on this new blog and plan my job search (I’ll write an article).

And class started again yesterday with, in particular, one class which may well be one of the most interesting of my MBA experience and which tells me that coming to Tsinghua for double degree was really the right choice.
I’m talking about the class of “China and the World Economy” of Li Daokui.
To have the opportunity to follow a class with someone as important is always a great chance, but here I think I could not have dreamed better to learn about the mechanics on China’s economy.

Tags: Academics
Posted in: 3. At Tsinghua MBA | 2 Comments »

Posted by Pam at 12 August , 2010

I arrived in China last Saturday and I’m in Japan since today, on holiday, until the Tsinghua registration on August 25th.

Wudaokou station by night

In the length of 5 days, I managed to open a bank account, visit 14 flats in the Wudaokou area and finally sign a lease for me to move in when I get back on August 24th. I also met about 15 of my new Tsinghua classmates, and then I couldn’t help but think of when we did the same thing with HEC admits, a year ago.

What can I say about these 5 days… It felt like being ran over by a truck!
Of course, it was self inflicted toughness, giving myself just 4 days (while massively jet-lagged) to find the flat of my year time. But, hey, this is China! And not exactly the sanitized expat China from Beijing’s East side. I dare say that my 5 senses were exposed to the experience.
The Beijing I’ll live in for a year is crowded, noisy and smelly. It was cold and humid, as summer is there, and I heard winter can be really cold. I also found that Beijingers love their chillies.
I think I’m in for a challenge ;)

But the internet connectivity in China is so damn slow!

Tags: Travels
Posted in: 3. At Tsinghua MBA , Just me | No Comments »