A lot of Indians look at the option of doing an MBA from East Asian b-schools. Smart choice for people who want to stay in this region post MBA and are looking for international exposure through their education.
Here, we reproduce the blog of an MBA student in NUS, Devmanyu Singh, in his first year at the full time MBA program. His experiences on diversity at the NUS showcase just how global the program is and how much you can expect to gain from interactions with your peers at this top ranked MBA.
‘Diversity is a key factor that differentiates NUS from most b-schools in Asia’ is what I had heard about the MBA program at NUS from my peers in office. This was about a year ago and I had just about started my b-school application process: focusing on Asian b-schools. Having worked with clients based across the globe, I was aware of the cultural and business practice differences that diversity brought along. However, I never quite understood or appreciated the meaning of ‘diversity’ till I entered University Town (or U-Town), the new residence block for graduate and undergraduate students at NUS. I entered the U-Town Housing Office, tired and sleep-deprived, to find myself amidst a group of Japanese with high range SLRs, a couple of Chinese all huddled up, an energetic South Korean guzzling a can of ‘Red Bull’, a South African with his copy of Lonely Planet – Singapore, and a confused Canadian suffering from jet lag. This was my first ‘real’ experience of diversity.
On the first day of orientation, we were told that in the Auditorium we were seated were people from 31 different nationalities (including people from the full time, part time, and dual degree programs)! The cohort had extensive representation from the emerging Asian economies along with a fair share of students from the developed Western nations. Everyone was excited thinking about this classic ‘east meets west’ script that would screenplay our lives for the next year and a half!
Apart from nationality, the cohort is also well represented in terms of professional and academic experience. We have a Tax Auditor with an experience of ten years at E&Y Philippines, a Commodity Trader from Nepal, an Investment Banker from the US, a Strategy Consultant from the Netherlands, the Owner of an export firm specialising in the manufacture and export of beachwear out of India, a former Director of an International NGO in Sri Lanka, a Doctor from Myanmar, a South Korean working in the energy sector in Iran for the last few years, an Architect from the UK, and a Cultural Specialist from Inner Mongolia (China), among others.
Most subjects in the first semester involve extensive group assignments and presentations. Across the five groups that I have for the various subjects, we comprise a pool of over eight nationalities and fourteen different professional backgrounds! However, remembering everyone’s name, some of them admittedly tongue twisters, was never easy for a person like me. Despite bumping into people quite frequently, I found it hard to put name to face. It was then that I learnt a good trick from Claude, my friend from South Korea, to click a picture of the person while exchanging digits.
The experience of wracking your head on a group submission or a case study with people from different parts of the world and backgrounds is surely a stimulating experience. For instance, sitting at Starbucks and working with Hoang from Vietnam on the statistics assignments is always fun because of his sheer tenacity of bringing in a completely different and admittedly unique perspective to an otherwise harmless and mundane question! Chinese are hard workers: I had always heard that and partly observed looking at teams in my previous firm’s Shanghai office. However, it was not until I sat down and slogged it out with my Chinese group members, especially Lin, in person that I realised the true meaning of this saying. I had also heard about the similarities between the ‘approach to life’ and the overall thinking process of Indians and Pakistanis. That was exemplified in reality while working with Umer and Fahd from Pakistan, who happen to be in my study groups.