Final Thoughts

“And in the end it is not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years.”
-Abraham Lincoln

As I've just finished packing the majority of my things, I'd like to take a little time to go over a few last things that I never got around to writing about.

A few weeks ago I finished up a course over industrial investment, which is a course I had never planned to take. I was supposed to be taking business law, but this is what happened instead: As June began, I thought we were supposed to have a new MBA course starting soon, since most courses only last a week or two, but I hadn't received any news or emails regarding the course, so I decided to visit the MBA office and ask when it was starting. As it turns out, the business law course was cancelled, and I was signed up to attend a finance course which had started the past weekend (meaning that there had already been 4 courses, or 12 hours of class that I missed). Luckily, there were two courses in investment coming up that I was able to sign up for. So, I put my name down for those and that night made my way back to the MBA building to see if I could catch up on the finance course that I had signed up for. When I walked into the room, I didn't see a single western student, or any of the Chinese students that were in my other courses, and immediately thought that, despite the fact the course was supposed to be taught in English, there was probably no way they had been speaking English over the past few days. As it turns out, they hadn't been, but the professor said he would compromise and try to speak in English half the time and then explain himself in Chinese for those who couldn't understand. Unfortunately, his English was so poor that he wasn't able to accurately teach the course in English. So, I sat through an hour and a half of a course that I couldn't understand a word of before slinking silently out the door.

Overall, the industrial investment course was fairly interesting, and was a good opportunity to practice presenting and writing case studies. My favorite moment in that course, however, happened on the last day of class during the test. Over the previous days, it became pretty obvious that the teacher, who was from the United States, had no control over the classroom, but this wasn't too big of a problem until the last day. The test was easy. It was a quick, 30 question multiple choice exam with no short answer or essay. To help the Chinese students out a little, the teacher decided that the last 15 minutes of the exam could be open note. The Chinese students had other plans. The majority of the classroom opened up their notes the second the exam began. The teacher asked the classroom about 5 times over the course of 10 minutes to put their notes away, before finally giving up with an exasperated announcement that notes were now allowed. Shortly after this, a few students began taking out their cellphones. Then a few more students noticed, then a few more, until again, a majority of the class had their notes and cellphones out. By this point, I was finished, so I turned in my test and left, but my friends who stuck around said it only got worse from there. The professor wasn't able to get the students to put their cellphones away, and before long the entire class was shouting out answers to the questions. The classroom turned to pure chaos and the professor could do nothing about it. I sincerely hope he failed all of the students who partook in this, as he should have, but I'm not so sure he would have done that. What amazes me is that these were not your average 18-22 year old college age students - everyone in the class was 25 or older, with several looking to be in their 40's, and they had no problem blatantly cheating and ignoring their professor. I can easily see now why cheating is such a huge problem in China. After this experience, I had dinner with Dr. Gess from Hendrix, who told me that when accepting Chinese students to the university, many of the TOEFL scores they submit are completely unreliable, as they've found ways to cheat even within standardized testing.

The last MBA course that I took was over investment and risk analysis with a German professor who had lived in China and worked at the university for quite a while. While, again, the class was interesting, it's really very difficult to learn anything in any of these courses. This particular course lasted only 1 week, but had class 6-8 hours a day on weekends and 3 hours a day on Tuesday and Thursday. The problem is that you have no time for homework, projects, presentations, or anything other than lectures, so you're sitting in a room for 6 hours with a short break every hour and half, doing nothing but listening to the professor up front talk. So, apart from the fact that you don't get any practice with the material, it's also very hard to stay focused.
I did, however, learn a few things. What I found most interesting didn't really have much to do with the class itself, but more about China in general. Lately, China's economy has been on the decline with the Shanghai stock index taking a huge tumble. This is all very widely known in the west and it's fairly easy to find very specific data about what exactly is happening through western news sources. Apparently that's not the case in China. According to our professor, and affirmed by the students, the Chinese government completely censors all of the bad data and none of it ever reaches the public. Many of the students had no idea what was going on with their economy.

This isn't too surprising, knowing that it is a communist state, but that's something that can be easy to forget, or look over, at times. This is mainly because I so often hear about the Chinese wanting to start a business, or about others who have started up companies and become very rich and successful by doing so, which isn't exactly something you would expect from a communist state. While here, I think it's important to remind yourself that China is actually a socialist market economy, which really is very evident when you stop and think about it, but if it weren't for the occasional hammer and sickle strewn about the city, it can be easy to overlook for those who don't speak the language and aren't full immersed in everyday Chinese life.

This will most likely be my last post to this blog, unless I get anymore ideas about something to write, or think of something big that I had forgotten, so I want to thank everyone who took the time to read my posts. I've had a great time in Shanghai, but I'm excited to go back home - I think 5 months was the perfect amount of time to stay here. Again, thanks to everyone, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to send me an email!